Observations of Seoul

1. Black Korean made sedans are de-rigeur and aesthetically resemble German cars in parts which are regarded highly, e.g. grill of an S-Class, rear light cluster of a 5 Series.

2. Kopi (coffee) costs much more per cup than a healthy and substantial bi-bim-bap lunch.

3. Tight perms are in, but only if you're over 50!

4. No one ever makes eye contact with you in public. I laughed out loud on the Subway at a comment made by Terry Jones on a BBC podcast and no-one even glanced at me...

5. Rich girls dress, but don't act, sexy; patent leather stilettos, dangerously short skirts, perfect smiles and immaculate teeth.

6. 30% of the population are Christian (19% Protestant, 11% Catholic) & 22% are Buddhist

7. South Koreans like their comforts, as an America friend said, 'they don't like to rough it'. It's true.

8. The pavements are spongy around Bundang, some kind of rubberised tarmac.

9. Austerity is in, although not for long I fear.

10. South Koreans have mixed feelings towards foreigners, I think the naturally exuberant nature of the American army staff have soured local sentiment a little towards all foreigners. Simply a conflict of culture and not malicious intent by Americans.

11. They don't really eat dog meat, well, no-one I have asked so far.

fast Internet connection in Seoul

I'm an internet geek and have always been fascinated with the massive scale deployment of fibre optics in Seoul to enable super-fast broadband. I'm sat here at my desk on a 60+mbit/s line with 10+mbit/s outbound. Enough to run a mid-size UK office building on. I think it is uncontended meaning that I get the full speed 24/7/365. I tried a couple of online speed-tests but they were unable to provide accurate readings as it blew the dial.

To give you an idea, a 700MB movie from a P2P site comes down in 15 to 19 minutes, a 7GB hi-def file comes down in under 3 hours. I should explain that while I am here, I am doing an independent report for the online video industry before you send my details to the studio's lawyers ;-) My immediate conclusion is that the studios are just a the pointy end of the wedge of film piracy and they probably need a secure micro-billing solution pretty quickly, yes ok, obvious plug, but I happen to think it's important :-)

Interestingly, when I first arrived my MacBook needed to be registered in order to get full internet access, I had a sporadic connection and some sites were blocked and whilst it was perfectly usable I could not access some vital services such as my online banking in the UK. Abunim called the ISP at around 8pm in the evening and someone arrived at the apartment at 1pm the next day to connect me, amazing, especially coming from the UK where customer service and satisfaction is woeful at best. The point is however that cheap labour does not necessarily need to be unskilled or manual, technology service engineers fall into this category in South Korea and probably underpin a chunk of the technology industry, which is HUGE!

Kamsahamnida, for reading.

My first saturday in Korea

So my first Friday night was a low key one, my father-in-law (아버님 abonim) and mother-in-law (어머님 ohmohnim) went to their country house outside Seoul for the night to move some personal belongings, more on the country house later. I walked briskly to the Star Park residential complex opposite Adena Palace, where I live. Star Park is a very typical, upper class residential development that sits on a piece of land some 100m squared more or less. There are four L shaped apartment towers connected on the lower 3 floors by shared architecture which contains underground parking, shops and restaurants. The retail space provides local residents with specific daily services such as dry cleaners, french style bakery and cakes shop which are hugely popular as it is considered courteous to bring cake when visiting friends or family. There are several restaurants and a couple of small furniture and drapery shops, all very cosy but I really wonder how many of them survive.

The restaurant I dined at is Nabura (I think, I'll correct this later if I am wrong). It's a typical pseudo Japanese-Korean restaurant blending Japanese tempura, seafood, noodle soup all served with kimchi, spicy marinade radish and mini-grilled sardines. I had eel & rice (unagi bap), which was OK but nothing special. The portion was a little small for my liking and this is something to watch out for when eating in South Korea. Portions are usually pretty good in the bi-bim-bap lunch cafes but the more upmarket, stylish and 'cool' international restaurants are about as good a value as London taxi. Oh, and I ordered a glass of red wine and it arrived chilled, almost ice cold. I've not figured out why red wine is served this way in Korea, I think it's done with the desire to preserve it but it just ends up tasting a little sour...oh dear.

Drinking red wine has really taken off in South Korea as the middle classes earnings have outstripped well beyond living costs and they seek to go all sophisticated and European. I think it's fair to say without sounding like a wine snob that their palettes have a little developing to do...although their capacity for alcohol consumption is unprecedented.

Jeongja to Sinchon via Seolleung

So, it's 4:30 and I'm trying to persuade my body that 4 1/2 hours sleep is enough and actually feeling pretty chipper, ok, I don't really like americanisms but this one just seems to fit nicely.

So my journey each day begins in the suburbs of Jeonja, which, judging by the number of perms is probably a 'senior' town. The subway in Seoul is stunning clean, efficient and busy, really busy. Rush hour is apparently from 5am to 10am although I have yet to confirm the 5am start it doesn't surprise me. I'll take some photos later today and try and have them uploaded tomorrow. My journey from Jeongja to Sinchon takes the best part of 2 hours so I am thankful to Bridget Kendall for the BBC World Service 'The Forum' podcasts which are my little daily english indulgence and perfect for the journey.

The subway is really a tribute to Korean engineering and a good example of the South Koreans' desire to maximise efficiency in all things. This of course means they are not designed for anyone over 5ft 6 and everything is either slightly to low or just too high for real comfort, I never thought I'd miss the London Underground!

The trains arrive every 4 or 2 minutes during rush hour and travel smoothly and at speed on newly laid tracks to their destination. It is as though the trains, the people and the operators are as one and share the same objective, by this I mean that the everything seems to connect to and compliment everything else. The train drivers almost knowingly braking very slowly knowing that 90% of the seated commuter passengers are asleep and not to be disturbed whilst the other 10% are on iPhones, LG or Samsung smart phones watching the Korean equivalent of a cat jumping into a flip-top-bin or whatever is the Korean equivalent of YouTube.

Ok, well, off for breakfast, probably another raw broccoli in garlic and a boiled egg which I'm a little partial to, the egg, not the broccoli!

Annyong haseyo - day one in Seoul

Annyong haseyo

A warm welcome to my blog.

I am living in South Korea for 10 weeks to learn the language. I am studying in Sogang University and living in Bundang. If you are reading this from outside Seoul and have never visited the Republic of Korea, then I welcome you to join me and follow my journey from non-native speaker to, well... let's see shall we?

I'll try and update this every day with the little vignettes that make my day interesting from the raw broccoli with garlic butter for breakfast to the man selling dozens of chestnut peelers on the tube, really, a proper TV shopping moment right in the Subway. I'll also take as many photos of jet black 'senior' perms, which are priceless.