So yesterday was Christmas! It certainly didn’t feel like it. I can’t complain though, I chose to be here as long as I could. I actually come back to Canada on a Sunday night and my classes begin on that Tuesday. I made sure my time here was maxed out. When’s the next time I’m going to be able to come to Korea for 4 months, right?

So here’s a breakdown of my Christmas Day:

• ·         woke up at 11:00am
• ·         tried to use the computer but realised my internet had been disconnected
• ·         ate some cereal
• ·         had a nap
• ·         watched the Sopranos while eating tangerines
• ·         had another nap
• ·         ate some more cereal and a sandwich
• ·         took a shower
• ·         went to bed by 1:00am

It was a pretty ordinary day indeed.

I was invited to go to Seoul with one of the ESL teachers but decided against it. I wasn’t really in the mood for travelling anywhere, even though it’s only about a 45 minute trip. Going to Seoul usually means late nights and substance abuse. Not something I wanted to take part in on this oh-holiest of days.

So like I mentioned above my internet has been disconnected. I’m not sure why. I was assured when I moved in that it would work until I went back to Canada. So my only connection to the outside world is through internet at the school. The school is empty with only grad students remaining, forced to keep working while their Professors left for winter-break. My building is also vacant with myself being the only one left living there. That’s also a little bit sad, no more students running around all night screaming and pounding on the walls. I’m not sure how I’m going to be able sleep. The whole area is like a ghost town, only a few of the restaurants and convenient stores remain open. I was worried that everything was going to shut down and I’d have to hunt the mountains for squirrels to eat for the last two weeks.

I don’t know what else to say, not a whole lot has happened. I went to Seoul again last weekend but I won’t get into that in any great detail. That’s about it. The last week and a half feels like me just waiting it out. Other than going out next week for New Years Eve I don’t have too much planned, just sitting around my apartment with no internet. Yay. A few of the students suggested I just stay at the school the whole time and only go to my apartment to shower and then come back. I may actually do that, there’s always someone here in one office or another.

I don’t have too many pics for this week either. I was at a Christmas party last Friday that the ESL teachers held. I have a group shot of that – but I’m not in it.

Well, next week is my last entry so I hope I have something more to say!!!!

This week I’ve been in the Image Processing lab. They work on processing images from different types of inputs (spectral cameras, IR cameras and even webcams) and then run algorithms on them that they’ve written to extract information from the images. A few applications of the work they do would be face recognition in cameras or automatically finding defects in LCD panels that would be invisible to the naked eye.

The students in here have to be the most lively that I’ve met so far, also the most dedicated. Some days I’ve arrived at 9:00am and didn’t go home until 1:00am. By “some days” I actually mean “most days”. Not all of it has been working though, they spend a good chunk of the day goofing off.

In Korean culture status, or age, is very important. When talking to someone you always identify someone by asking them their age. This tells you how you should address them. In English it would be like calling someone “Older Brother Ryan”, “Younger Brother Ryan”, or just plain old “Ryan Brother”. This is what I’ve come to be known by, “Ryan Brother”. Or when you really get to know someone and become friends an “ah” sound is added to the end of your name, “Ryanah”.

They’ve been great to me, they take me around the school and introduce me to all their other friends that don’t work in the same lab. When you meet new Korean people the first question you usually get asked is, “Do you like kimchee?” followed by, “Have you been to Seoul?” Yes and Yes.

Speaking of Seoul, I went last weekend for a night. I’m always amazed that when you get a hotel room it’s a simple cash transaction, no questions asked. The room I stayed in was 50,000 Korean Won which is about equivalent to $45.00 Canadian. Cheap, cheap, cheap! What really blows me away is that for this price you would expect to be staying in a dump. Not in Korea, my room was huge! Complete with a 52” plasma screen, computer with internet access, queen bed and sitting area with a couch. I mean, if I wanted to I could have left in the middle of the night with the plasma – and I did think about it. Except that by the time I got back to the hotel room from our night out it was close to 6:00am. Our night out will have to be saved for another blog that won’t be posted on the Niagara Research site.  : )

Needless to say, I had a great time and will be going back this weekend. One of the English teachers who I’ve been hanging around with is leaving on Sunday to go back to the United States for holidays. So we decided to go out one last time as a goodbye party.

Another thing I’ve learned recently is the lavish life style that the English teachers at Hoseo live. Unlike schools in Canada, Korean Universities get 2 months off between each term. So they teach from September – late December and then again from March – late June. Not to mention they get about 2 weeks off in the middle of EACH term. This adds up to a total of about 5 months paid vacation each year! If they live on campus in the International Faculty Building they get a fairly decent sized apartment for free. Nice right? Here’s the best part, their “full-time” work week is 14 hours!!!  They get paid overtime after 16 hours a week!! Now I know why a few of them have come out here to work for 1 or 2 years after college and have never returned. How can you go back to a 40 hour a week job that you hate after living like this?? They also said they don’t get hassled by University administration at all. They pretty much get their class lists at the beginning of each term and then hand in their grades at the end.

So this week being the last week of exams at the University means my last two weeks here will be fairly quiet ones. A lot of the English teachers are either going home for the holidays or taking off to some warm beach somewhere like Thailand or Cambodia. I was thinking about going down to Thailand for a week with one of them, but I have to make sure I can pay tuition first!

The only students that will be at the school over the break will be the masters and PhD students. These are the students I’m with in the labs anyways, so I’ll have company.

Tonight the English teachers are having a Christmas Party (and yes, they call it a CHRISTMAS party) with a small 10 dollar gift exchange. So it should be fun. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas around here at all, there are a few lights hanging here and there but that’s about it. So it should be a good time.

One last thing I wanted to mention. I was talking to a friend of mine that also works for Niagara Research named Louise and he said how his Mom reads my blogs every week. So I wanted to say thank you to Ms. Garcia, thanks for reading!!

The weather's been quite erratic in the last week. On the weekend we had more snow with the temperature dipping to about -5 Celsius but as I'm writing this it's a mild 12 degrees. All the snow has gone and it's spring jacket weather once again. Not that I'm complaining, if it stays like this the rest of the time I'm here I'll be happy. As of today, I have 26 days left.

I was talking to a friend at home last night about New Years plans this year and how he wants to travel somewhere but couldn't get a few other guys on board. So I suggested he come out here for a week. Hopefully he's able to pull it off, if he's able to find a cheap enough flight he said he would for sure come. Fingers crossed.

As for the rest of the week it was the same old. Sitting around the office during the days sometimes until 10:30pm, reading text books on display technologies then coming home to try to coordinate an effort on a report that has to be written with a colleague from home. The problem is he gets to work at 8:30am, for me that's 10:30pm and by that time I'm starting to wind down and I'm not really in a working mood anymore.

In mountain climbing news, we went on Sunday in the bitter cold all dressed up in our winter gear. We made it about half way up and decided it was too cold and slippery to continue so we found a trail that went down the opposite side of the mountain. We went that way to explore a little bit. We wondered into a clearing where we found what looked like small homes centered on a small village square. There were no people around so I'm not sure who lived there, or IF anyone even lived there. I think it might have been a retreat village where monks go to meditate or something. That's the feeling I got, especially considering after we walked up 30 or so stairs leading away from the buildings there was a giant stone with a huge Buddha carving in it.

Under the carving there was a hole in the rock large enough that if you crawled you could fit in. I wanted to check it out because there was light coming from inside. After crawling through this small opening it opened up to a fairly large cave. The light was from candles that were burning along the perimeter of the walls. There were bamboo mats on top of foam rubber covering the floor, we took this as, "take your shoes off please." So we did and went in. On the back wall there was a tiny staircase that you could squeeze into that went up to a second level - I think it was a natural formation in the cave. At the top was a small 10 foot long by 3 foot wide room. Again, candles lined the room and there were carvings of smaller Buddha's in the walls. There was also a box of incense, a lighter and a box for donations. I just kept thinking how cool this place would have been when I was 10 years old as a fort.

We sat there while I struggled to take some pictures in the low light then left and went home. It was starting to storm and was too cold to stay outside any longer.

I'm writing this entry in a new lab that I started in today. So I'm meeting a whole bunch of new people. I seem to be causing quite a stir, they all seem very happy to have met me. It's usually the case when I meet new people here. First their mouths drop open, and then they give me their best, "HELLO!”.They start busting out their best English catch phrases and telling me their English names. It goes on for a little while and then the excitement finally dies down.

As I've been sitting here watching this the comparison has finally hit me, Mary had a little lamb. This sums up exactly how I've felt most of the time I've been here.

"It made the children laugh and play to see a foreigner at school."

I also have a fleece as white as snow.

Last week I had the awesome opportunity to go to Beijing for a few days. I went with Dr. Kim and one of his PhD students to attend another conference.

I started out on an early morning bus ride to Incheon Airport. I had to be on the bus at 4:00am to get to the airport for a 9:15 flight. After a two hour plane ride we landed in Beijing. Our trip was booked through a tour group so we were picked up at the airport by a bus along with some other Korean business men that were on our flight.

Our first stop was the conference which was about a 20 minute ride from airport. This conference didn’t have any seminars for us to attend, it was just a few large exhibition floors. First on our list was the green energy exhibition. Dr. Kim is interested in expanding the research at Hoseo University from display technology to solar cell research as well. We wondered around the floor for a while. It wasn’t so much an exchange of ideas/technology type of thing, it was vendors looking to get exposure on the products they had to offer.

After the green energy exhibits we went onto to the photonics floor, from there we went into the sensor technology area. I saw a system that does pretty much what my project set out to do, but for solar cells. It’s a very large platform that you place solar cells at one end and after going through various stages they come out cut and cleaned at the other. Also of interest was a portable spectroscopy machine that was about $20,000.00.

The conference had a security team and checkpoints that were comparable to most airports I’ve been through recently. Complete with walk-through metal detectors and x-ray machines for your bags. I’m not sure why, I couldn’t see anyone wanting to do any harm at a technology conference. Dr. Kim said the security wasn’t the military or the police although you could have mistaken them for either based on what they were wearing. He explained that because the country is communist it’s very important that everyone has a job, no matter how insignificant it may be. Otherwise the people may decide that communism isn’t as great as the government has made it out to be. This also explained the army of elderly women wondering the sidewalks sweeping up leaves. They had the same sized dust pans as you would have in your kitchen and a small broom, they would sweep 4 or 5 leaves at a time, walk over to a garbage can, dump them and then do it all again – at a VERY slow pace.

After 5 hours of the conference we got back on the bus. I was thinking we were heading to the hotel, but in fact we were on our way to a Chinese circus type show. It was an acrobatics show put on by children aged 12 to about 16 that were bending in ways I thought was humanly impossible. One girl was laying flat on her stomach and brought her feet up so far that she was basically standing on her own head while lying down. Her spine should have snapped.

There was a short intermission between acts so I asked Dr. Kim if these kids were in the Olympics or something. He laughed and said that the company that produces the show bought these kids. They were orphans so they get trained for the show, they also make them drink vinegar so their bones are basically like rubber and able to bend in ways they shouldn’t normally bend. It was very sad. After the show these ‘vinegar kids’ were standing in the lobby screaming, “D V D”, selling copies of the show. So basically they were slaves.

We headed to dinner before going to the hotel where I tried some Peking duck and a few shots of what’s called “gasoline” in other countries.

The next day the same tour bus picked us up in the morning for a day long tour of some of the sites. The first stop was Tiananmen Square which was just basically a very large city square with buildings surrounding it. There was no one stopping any tanks on this particular day. The group stopped to listen to the tour guide for a few minutes (who spoke in Korean only), so I wondered around a bit and took some pictures.

The next place we visited was The Forbidden City which is right beside Tiananmen Square. Wikipedia says that the Forbidden City was, “the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square metres.”

I would have known that already if I understood Korean. I guess basically it’s where the rich guys lived. The place was enormous but because of time restrictions we didn’t get to tour everything. We sort of stayed in the center and went from the front to the back and then exited. I got a lot of pictures though.

After leaving the forbiddenist of all cities we got back on the bus and headed for lunch. After lunch we drove about an hour out of the city and ended up at the Great Wall. When we were getting closer to it we got into very mountainous terrain, the scenery was gorgeous, it also helped that it was a perfect day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was about 12 C. As we were driving through mountain tunnels and seeing the Wall across from us winding its way up and over enormous mountains I got a lump in my throat and goose bumps over my whole body. I don’t know if it was a combination of the music I was listening to on my iPod while looking at this beautiful scene unfold in front of me or what, but there was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and happiness for the opportunity to witness all of this, something that I probably would never have seen in my whole life. I was quite moved by it all.

We got to an area where we took a cable car up to the top of the Wall and walked around. We made it to a spot which was the highest point of the Wall in the visible distance. I can’t even describe it. Look at the pictures...

We made it back to the hotel for dinner pretty late and I hit the bed right after. I was exhausted from walking around all day. The next morning it was time to go “home”. I packed up and enjoyed another 2 hour plane ride back to Korea. 

Although I was only there for 3 days it felt like a week. I can’t even begin to express my gratitude for being able to experience this. Thank you.

Well since my last blog entry the snow has come and gone. It only stayed around over night and was melted by the next afternoon. The weather’s once again mild – very nice actually.

Other than the weather I’m not sure what to write about this week. It’s been another one of those routine weeks where not a whole lot has happened. Next week I’ll be in Beijing for another conference so I’m excited about that.

I’ve been having these really strange dreams lately. I’ll be dreaming that I’m back at Niagara College hanging out with the other Research Assistants in the lab, then I’ll realize that I don’t know how I got there and that I should be in Korea still. I go into a panic and wonder how I’m going to get back here to get my things. This is the weird part, after I realize I should be in Korea still someone walks in with a pet cat on a leash. It’s not just a house cat though, it’s a tiger or a leopard or something, but a small one – about the size of a German Sheppard. He assures me the cat is nothing to be afraid of, but I can see in its eyes he wants a piece of me. Somehow he gets loose of the leash and ends up on top of me digging his claws in. While I’m pinned down trying to keep it away from my face I can still hear people assuring me that it’s going to be fine, that the cat is friendly. Then I wake up.

Weird right? I’ve had this dream about 5 times now. Each time it’s slightly different. Sometimes we’re in the lab, sometimes we’re at someone’s house, but it’s always the same people and the same thing always happens.

I’m not much for dream interpretation, anyone have any ideas? Has anyone at home recently purchased any exotic cats that I should be aware of?

As far as lab work goes, I’ve finished my time in the LCD lab and will be starting in the PDP (plasma display) lab next week. We were working on a small project of making a small LCD panel consisting of a few 7-segment LCD cells that would be a clock when it was done. Unfortunately the students are very busy right now and couldn’t come with me everyday into the clean room so it didn’t get finished. It’s ok though – I had a few days of LCD theory before we decided to build the clock so I understood the basics.

I have just over a month left here. It’s going to be a sad a day when I have to go home. Although on the upside I was just checking some websites and saw that gasoline prices have dropped to about 70 cents!!! What is that?? It was about double that when I left... holy.

This week not all that much happened. I’ve finished my time in the TFT lab and have moved on to the LCD lab for the next 2 weeks, we went for our weekly mountain hike and then had our weekly meetings. I’m starting to feel a lot more at home here because of the routine I’ve gotten into. Things that were brand new and exciting 2 months ago have become the status quo. Don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not complaining, I love it here.

My typical day consists of waking up, going to the lab, eating lunch, going back to the lab and then going home. Usually though, going home isn’t until 10:30 at night. The students that I share an office with usually stay even longer than that. It’s not uncommon for them to sleep the night at their desk and start working again when they wake up. I haven’t had any sleepovers yet, I find my single bed to be much more comfortable.

On the weekends I usually find a small adventure. This past weekend I went up to Seoul on Saturday and came home Sunday night. We took the KTX train instead of a bus or subway. The KTX is a high speed train that travels about 300km/h. It turns a 2 hour subway ride into 30 minutes. Well worth the 10 dollars I’d say. We went to a few places in Seoul, the highlight was the Hongdae district. It’s a never ending maze of small, pedestrian only streets lined with clubs and bars. We even went to one called “The Rocky Mountains” which was a Canadian bar, filled with – you guessed it – Canadians. It was pretty cool.

Sunday we woke up and walked around Yongsan market. It’s a huge area with outdoor and indoor markets that sell all things electronic. Anything you can think of they have there for cheap. You have to be careful though because most of them are small independent vendors so you have no idea where the products came from or if they’re in good working order. So if you’re planning on going there anytime soon, be careful, ok?

Another big part of life here is the food – obviously. Before I left I wasn’t a big fan of the spicy stuff. The first few meals I had here I couldn’t handle. There’s spice in everything. When we’d go out to eat they’d order me food without the spice and then laugh about it. So I tried it again and gradually I built up some kind of immunity / liking to it. Now I crave it! It’s a different kind of spicy though, it’s not really on your tongue, it’s on the back of your throat. I like it so much now that I get sad when I think about going home and eating the blandness we call food. I really hope there’s a Korean supermarket in the Niagara region somewhere. I might even open my own restaurant.

All in all I feel completely comfortable here.

As I’ve been writing this blog it started to snow for the first time this year so I’m cutting it off short to go for a walk with one of the other students.

Have a good one!

So this last Monday we went for a day trip to the Korean Folk Village in Suwon City. Laura was going home and wanted to buy some souvenirs from a traditional Korean market area. I’m not sure what traditional Korean souvenirs are, but I knew what she meant – to go look around a market. We expressed our intentions to Dr. Kim and he said we should go to the Korean Village, that it was a nice area especially this time of year. So that’s where we went.

Suwon City is about a 45 minute train ride from Hoseo and then another 20 minute bus ride to the village. I thought we were going to an actual village but where we ended up was a touristy type “Korean Village” with an admission price. It was the same idea as any colonial themed attraction at home like going to Fort George in Niagara on the Lake. The only difference was this place was never an actual village where as Fort George was in fact used to fight off the Yankee army in 1812. Anyways, whatever it was it was beautiful. Dr. Kim was right about it being nice this time of year. The weather around here so far has only hit as low as about 10 degrees and it didn’t stay there for very long. The days are still sunny and are usually about 15 or 16 degrees. The leaves are only just starting to fall.

So we walked around the village learning about Korean history and how its people lived 100’s of years ago. It was all very interesting; we learned that Korean people used to eat nothing but plastic food. It was a cool place though; it had areas where all of the different classes of people would have lived, a Buddhist temple, a jail, the government building and a traditional Korean haunted house. We went through the haunted house, but being from Niagara Falls – the haunted house capital of the Western Hemisphere – I was let down by it’s hauntedness. It left much to be desired.

After the haunted house we went to get some real food to eat and to look for the souvenirs we were there for. The souvenirs were typical of any tourist attraction; “I Love <insert country name here>” shirts, plastic children’s toys and kimchee pots. Well I guess that last one isn’t so typical, but if you don’t have enough kimchee to fill a pot then you don’t really need a pot for kimchee at all do you? Wiser words have never been spoken. Plus, they were pretty expensive but I guess that’s also typical of these types of places.

We saw some performers dance and play their drums for awhile which was pretty neat. Some of the smaller ones were even doing flips. Then we saw a see-saw show where two girls would spring each other high into the air and do tricks while up there, also pretty cool. The show stopper however was the tight-rope walker. He did things on a tight-rope that I can’t do on solid ground. It was amazing how flexible this old guy was and just when you thought he was about to fall off – well, that’s what he wanted you to think. It was all part of the show.

We walked quickly through a museum with some displays depicting early Korean life and traditional ceremonies. By this time the park was getting ready to close so we found our way to the exit but not before passing through a traditional Korean amusement park complete with a traditional Korean carousel and rollercoaster.

So we didn’t find what we set out to find but we did have fun and the place looked like it was out of a painting. With the leaves changing colors it was stunning.

Just before getting on the train to get back to the school I found what I believe to be the highlight of the day; a McDonalds that ONLY SERVES BREAKFAST – ALL DAY!!  Even though the service was a little bit slow I enjoyed my two Egg McMuffins on the train and fell asleep happy.

This week I went to Japan for 4 days to attend another conference, the FPD (flat panel display) International conference. I also managed to get quite a bit of sight-seeing in as well. It was a busy 4 days.

Arriving in Japan

The day we arrived in Tokyo was a long one. Our ride to the airport was leaving at 3:00am even though the flight wasn’t until 11:05am. So after only a few hours of sleep I was up and in a packed minivan full of other students on their way to the airport. The drive to Incheon airport from where I live is about 2 hours so it wasn’t a very pleasant trip.

After sitting around the airport lobby for 5 hours we were finally through all the airport security checkpoints and boarded the plane. The flight was only about an hour and forty-five minutes. On the plane I was reading an article in the Northwest Airlines magazine about Tokyo and a 3 day agenda of things you should see while you’re in Tokyo. How perfect. I tore it out and brought it with me when we landed.

We landed at Narita airport just outside Tokyo so we took a shuttle bus in to our hotel that was closer to downtown. The hotel we stayed at was called the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. This place had everything. There were about 15 restaurants in the hotel and the surrounding area, an 80 lane bowling alley, an aquarium with hourly dolphin shows, tennis courts, swimming pools and a small mall.  If I didn’t leave the hotel for the whole 4 days I don’t think I would have been able to do everything that it had to offer.

By the time I was settled in the hotel room it was close to 6pm so I watched the sun set behind a mountain on the horizon and then headed for a place to eat.

FPD International Conference

The FPD Conference was interesting. This year’s theme was “ambient” and “green.” Ambient meaning that the day is coming when the objects around us – walls, windows and desktops for example – can display information on demand, becoming part of the environment we live and work in. With more displays popping up in areas where they weren’t before it’s important that they’re energy efficient. This is where “green” comes in.

The exhibition floor was full of companies showing off their newest display technology. There were even a few companies showing their ideas for towns to be completely powered by renewable energy sources. There was a small town that was being powered by an array of solar panels. A few of the companies that attended were LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Nikon.

Unlike the IMID conference we didn’t attend any lectures. We stayed on the exhibition floor for a few hours until everyone had a chance to see what they wanted to and then we left. After leaving the conference we explored the surrounding water-front area. It reminded me of Toronto’s water-front. People were walking dogs, fishing and homeless men were sleeping under trees.

Roppongi Hills

Constructed by the architect Minoru Mori, this area incorporates office space, apartments, shops, restaurants, cafes, movie theatres, a museum, a hotel, a TV studio, an outdoor amphitheatre, and a few parks. In the center of it all is the 54-story Mori Tower where you can go to the roof and get the best view of Tokyo in the city. The area is an ultra-modern view of Tokyo’s future. The idea behind the design was to incorporate all of these things into one complex so people could live, work and play in the same area without commuting.

It’s very impressive as you’re walking around the area although it’s very easy to get lost. There seems to be no logical layout to it and people lacking perfect mental navigation would easily find themselves lost by the maze of walkways.

We spent a long time wondering the area before stopping at a restaurant for dinner. We wanted to try something new – some authentic Japanese cuisine – instead, we had hamburgers and fries. I have to say though, it was one of the best hamburgers that I’ve ever had.  OK, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but it was good.

After dinner we went to the rooftop of the Mori tower. By this time it was night so there were lights as far you could see. You really got an idea up there about how big the city actually is. In all 360 degrees around you the lights went on to the horizon. We also went into the Mori Art Museum which has to be the strangest thing I encountered in Tokyo. The first thing we saw when we walked in was dead animals and birds hanging from the ceiling by strings with stuffed (toy) animal heads put over their heads. There was one bird wearing a Care Bear head. One of the other displays was an intricate system of ropes and pulleys that were being pulled by some motors behind a wall somewhere. The strange thing was that the ropes were tied to more stuffed animal looking things with sharp claws that were being dragged around the floor and being pulled up towards the ceiling. It reminded me of a nightmare.  

Sensoji Temple

Sensoji Temple is the oldest in Tokyo. According to legend, a statue of the Kannon (Goddess of Mercy) was found in the Sumida River in 628 by two fishermen, the brothers Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari. The chief of their village, Hajino Nakamoto, recognized the statue and enshrined it by remodelling his own house into a small temple in Asakusa, so that the villagers could worship the Kannon.

During World War II the original temple was destroyed by air raids, after the war the temple that now stands was built.

The day we were at the temple there were Monks visiting. We had a chance to see them as they left. We walked around the grounds for awhile. Beyond the entrance gate are street vendors in stalls that line the alleys and streets in the surrounding area selling traditional Japanese sweets, souvenirs, etc...

An older man started talking to us as we were looking at the coy fish in a pond. He insisted that before we left the area we had to see the two famous plastic food shops that provide the plastic food for the displays in much of the restaurants in Tokyo. We went to Ueno Park instead.

Ueno Park

Ueno Park is similar to Central Park in New York City. It’s a large park in the center of Tokyo where people go to walk around, sit on a bench to relax or play with the stray cats. There are a lot of stray cats. There are a lot of stray people for that matter. It’s the only place in Tokyo I saw homeless people other than the one near the water-front. I guess if I was homeless in Tokyo it’s where I would want to be too. It’s a very peaceful place in the middle of a very busy city. Plus, it has a zoo.

We walked around here for a few hours in the afternoon before setting off for Shinjuku, the Times Square of Tokyo.

Shinjuku

Before getting into the heart of the Shinjuku area we stopped off at Takeshita Street. A small pedestrian only street lined with cafes and fashion boutiques. Most places seemed to be tiny independently owned shops. It was a pretty cool place. Mostly teenagers were walking around here. I figured it was an alternative shopping district to the one that ran directly parallel to Takeshita Street. That’s where all the high end stores were, everything from Louis Vuitton to Burberry.

Once we got into the main area it was neon sign heaven. Everything was lit up. It was sensory overload, people were everywhere. This is what I had always pictured Tokyo as being. We walked around the area for a few hours and stopped at a small restaurant for dinner. The place was literally as wide as a train car. It was on a street that was packed with similar such restaurants side-by-side.

After dinner we wanted to find the bar that the film Lost In Translation was filmed in. The guide I had torn out of the airline magazine gave us the name and hotel. It’s the New York Grill in the Park Hyatt Hotel. New York Grill? Sounds casual, right?

We spent about an hour or more trying to find the Park Hyatt Hotel. The building the hotel is in is 64 storeys high, the hotel occupies floors 34 to 64, and the rest of it is office space. We went into the lobby but could not figure out how to enter the hotel. There were three separate banks of elevators, each of them intended for a certain range of floors, the floors the hotel were on were not listed anywhere. We had to ask a security guard how we could get to the hotel, he showed us to a dimly lit back corner of the lobby that was completely hidden from everything else. We walked up a flight of stairs and got in the first elevator. This elevator took us up to floor 34, we got off to find no one at all around. The whole place was empty. We were in another lobby, but the fanciest lobby I have ever been in. We continued on to find another elevator that only went up another 4 floors and exited into a white table cloth dining room area.  We asked the hostess how to get to the New York Grill, she told us how to get to yet another elevator that went to the top of the hotel where it was. Finally!

We took the last elevator the remaining 15 or so floors to the top. When the doors opened there was a host at a desk directly in front of us that showed us to our table. We asked for a table in the bar area. This place was immaculate. There was a jazz band playing, the lights were dimmed to almost being off and people were sipping on martinis. There we were in our jeans that we’ve been wearing all day, I felt very out of place. The New York Grill to me was a very misleading name. This was the fanciest bar / restaurant I’ve ever been in. The host mentioned while seating us that there was a 2000 Yen (about 25 dollars Canadian) table charge per person just to sit down. I started to sweat.

We looked at the menu, the cheapest draft beer they had was 1400 Yen (about 17 dollars). I started doing some quick mental math and figured we were looking at close to 80 dollars for two beers!!  I don’t think I could live with that, no matter where I was. I made the suggestion that we get up and leave with our tails between our legs – and so we did. They even thanked us for coming on the way out.

The four days we spent in Tokyo were amazing. I’m very thankful to have such an opportunity. Everyone we met, from waiters to people on the street, were exceptionally polite and went out of their way to help us. One man we asked directions to didn’t speak English so he found someone who did and ran after us after we had walked away so we could ask that person. I would love to return to the city in the future to stay a little bit longer to really look around.

Well I suppose comparatively speaking this week was on the uneventful side.  I did however have my first visitor since I’ve been away (my girlfriend Laura flew over from Buffalo to stay for 10 days.) Two of my lab-mates were nice enough to drive out to the Incheon airport to pick her up, and by the time we got back to the school it was 1am.  First thing the next morning we headed out to Seoul so that I could visit the "camera district" and replace my old camera (I significantly upgraded, so you all can expect some decent pics from here on out).  I spent most of the day going from shop to shop attempting to bargain by typing my suggested price into the sales clerks' calculators.  A little nerve-wracking to make a major purchase like that in a foreign place, but I’m confident I came out with a good deal (despite the fact that to my dismay none of the cameras could be purchased in factory-sealed shrink-wrap.)

The next night Dr. Kim, his grad students, Laura and I went out for dinner.  Laura brought over gifts from Canada for everyone (little bottles of Canadian maple syrup, some maple cookies, a couple bottles of ice wine, and a bottle of scotch for Dr. Kim), so I thought this would be a good opportunity to get everyone their gifts and thank them for all of their help thus far.  No one really seemed to know what to do with the maple syrup (I caught one of the students opening the bottle and hesitantly smelling it), but liquor is universal so there was no problem deciding what to do with the scotch.  The entire bottle was finished off that night – SooHwan repeatedly expressed, "I don't like it, I don't like it" - however he did manage to choke down five shots.  I personally find scotch to be more disgusting than soju.  Laura finished my shot.  Also I suppose it's worth mentioning that we had Korean duck for dinner.  I find it charming that they have photos of live ducks on the sign for the restaurant.  They love to show you what your food looks like before its dead.  The duck was tasty - it gets cooked on the grill that's built into the table, and once it's cooked you wrap the little duck pieces in lettuce leaves.

Finally - I took Laura up the mountain so I could show off my newly developed mountain-legs.  She did pretty well, but was a bit pale when we reached the top.  A couple who I’d estimate to be in their 60's came sauntering up after us, barely winded.  They spoke no English at all, however they immediately began sharing their food with us.  They tore off a chunk of their rice cake (which looks by the way like fish guts) and also gave us a water-bottle filled with luke-warm black coffee.  We happened to have brought up a knife and a large Asian pear ourselves, so we had a rather pleasant exchanging of food-stuffs with the locals.  I tried to get a picture with them, but they refused.  I’ve noticed that many Korean people for some reason absolutely refuse to be photographed.

Next week is Japan.  I can't believe I’m going - pretty excited.  Thank you Niagara College!

This week was the IMID International Display Exhibition in Ilsan. Ilsan is a suburb of Seoul just to the North I think. I went up there with Dr. Kim and a few grad students to view the exhibition as well as to sit in on some conferences. Unfortunately my camera is now officially broken so I don’t have any pictures of anything this week. Hopefully it will be replaced soon.

The exhibition floor was typical as far as exhibitions go, it was just on a larger scale. There were many independent companies showing off their newest tech. I didn’t actually get around to everything but I did see a few cool ones like a company that makes 3D screens viewable without any type of 3D glasses. Most of my time was spent at the Samsung and LG setups. They had huge areas dedicated to all areas of their businesses; the newest cell phones, TVs, computers and cameras. It was all very interesting. If you want to know more about the conference check out this site:  http://2008.imidex.org/english/index.php

Since I was with the OLED grad students the conferences we attended were on White OLED technology. It was made up of universities and private companies giving 15 minute presentations on their research and how they’re furthering the technology. Every presentation was in English, even if English wasn’t the speaker’s first language. Although I don’t know that much about OLED technology I found the presentations very interesting and could understand what they were talking about for the most part.

At lunch time we were going to go to a place in the conference center but it was too busy. So we went to the car and drove to a small restaurant a few blocks away. When we came back after lunch the conference center’s parking lot was full. There was parking on the streets surrounding the center but they were all full too. So we double parked on a very busy street in a bus zone. We told the driver it probably wasn’t the greatest place to park but he thought it would be ok. I joked about how we would be walking back to Hoseo because the car would be towed. Sure enough, it got towed. We came back after the last conference and it was gone. So we sat and waited for an hour and a half for the owner of the car to track it down, take a cab to go get it and then come back to get us. We were supposed to be meeting up with a colleague of Dr. Kim’s at a university in Seoul for some dinner. We finally arrived very late and started eating. The restaurant we went to was in the Hongdae area of Seoul. It’s a club / bar area. So we jumped around to 4 or 5 places before making it back to the hotel.

I don’t understand how Koreans do it. They can stay up until all hours of the night drinking and then pop out of bed at 7am the next morning ready for the day. I wasn’t built that way. The two hour car ride home wasn’t a pleasant one.

Ok, so now it’s time for my rant. It’s about my Korean language class. I don’t think it’s for me. It’s not that I don’t want to learn Korean, I do. It’s just that I don’t believe this class is the way for me to do it. The first week was fine, we learned the letters and how to put them together to form words. We also focussed a lot on pronunciation. I was doing well during this time I thought, I was able to read, very slow mind you but I could do it. It was the next week when my stress level began to grow. We started progressing a little further into our workbooks and I had no idea what was going on. Everything is in Korean with little to no English for me as a reference. The teacher also doesn’t speak any English so I don’t know what she’s talking about when she’s teaching. When we’re supposed to be listening to a tape and writing answers in our books the instructions are in Korean so I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be listening to let alone what I should be writing. Same thing applies when we’re doing an exercise in our books – the instructions are all in Korean. I’ve never felt so stupid in all my life. I sit there praying that I don’t get asked to answer a question. Even though I’m sure it’s something as simple as the teacher asking me what food I like to eat, I can’t answer. I just sort of make a face like I don’t know, but she stays on me and keeps on asking. It’s really quite embarrassing. Then finally someone will whisper the answer to me and I’ll repeat it (TRY to repeat it). This doesn’t help at all, although the teacher is off my back I still don’t know what the question was or what I said to answer it. The teacher knows I’m the weakest in the class so she thinks it will help to ask me just about every other question she brings up. I know she means well, but it’s not helping. The absolute worst part of it is when I do manage to repeat an answer that someone has whispered to me the whole class claps at me. I know they also mean well and are trying to be encouraging, but to me I feel like a dog that just learned a new trick. I just need a lot more time to spend on learning it which usually isn’t a possibility because I’m at the office / lab most nights until 9:30pm. I’m trying to stay positive but I’m actually at the point where I’m thinking about it at night and it’s stressing me out. So today I didn’t go to class. I know this is something that maybe isn’t the best thing to be writing on my school’s blog site but I’m trying to be honest about it. I just think for me, there’s a better way to be learning. One of the English teachers is actually quite fluent in Korean because he’s been here for 6 years. He’s offered to tutor me privately and teach me things that I will actually use in the remaining time I have here. Like how to order food at a restaurant, ask directions, etc...

I think this type of crash course would be better for me and for my mental health.

I love everything else I’m doing. The lab work is great. I just started in a TFT lab learning about thin film transistors and active panel matrices. Technology seems to be a universal language. I can be taught by someone who doesn’t speak English. I can also ask questions about what I’m learning and be understood with no problems at all.