pogoism

I really, really, really love this place. I think it’s almost impossible to not have a good time here.

Last night, after spending a few hours drinking soju bombs (건배!) we went to a nore-bang. In Korea, bang just means room. There’s loads of different bangs – PC bangs (for gamers), DVD bangs (with a screen, sofa and DVD player) and nore-bangs (literally “sing room”, a room with a karaoke machine and flashing lights). We snuck in some of our own drinks and settled down to a night of singing.

I’m not normally a huge fan of karaoke, my limited experience of it being in gay bars and the only people taking part are serious X Factor wannabes. Nore-bangs are fun though, because it’s a single room with friends, so you don’t have to worry too much about making an idiot of yourself. The soju helps too, of course…

In 1993, Daejeon (then called Taejŏn) held the international exposition. 17 years on, the site is still in use and it’s called Expo Park. It’s one of the must-do attractions in Daejeon, so this weekend Sofie and I decided to go and take a look.

Frankly, it’s a little bit bizarre. We arrived (after caught in one of the heaviest rainstorms I’ve probably ever been in), and were confronted by the ticket desk. From what we could make out, you could buy a ticket to see 3 of the attractions for 7000 won. Hmm… why would anyone want to do that, when the cost of an individual attraction is only 2000 won? Anyway, we decided not to pay and went exploring instead. First stop, the Tower of Great Light. Based on a traditional Korean observatory, apparently.

The signage at the bottom of the tower said that first you would be taken to the middle floor (that round bit in the middle), and then you could climb the stairs to the top. We took the elevator to the middle bit, had a look around and then tried to find the stairs up but alas there were none. Apparently you can’t go to the top any more.

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Settle down class. Today’s lesson is going to be about Korean food.

It seems like there are two different types of Korean food – one you get in the canteen, and one you get out in restaurants. Most of my Korean culinary experience comes from the former, so I’m not sure how accurate a portrayal of Korean cuisine this will be. But I’m going to blog about it anyway.

Food from the canteen can be categorized into one of a few different things:

1. Salty water with things floating in it.
2. Mashed up fish/meat/vegetables/fruit/tofu formed into perfect geometric shapes.
3. Jelly. It’s best not to probe further into what this “jelly” contains, so I haven’t.
4. Kimchi.
5. Rice. With every meal, and in copious amounts.

Though that doesn’t sound too appealing, some of it is actually quite nice. The typical Korean canteen meal is a buffet style affair, where you choose one menu (not sure why we have to do this, as I always mix-and-match anyway), then proceed to the food trolleys and fill your tray up with whatever you like. I’m getting pretty good at figuring out what has meat in it, but it’s still a little tricky sometimes. General rule: if you don’t know what it is, it’s probably best to steer clear.

Kimchi is probably my favourite bit of canteen food. It’s a traditional Korean dish, and you get it with almost every meal. It can be made out of a variety of vegetables, though from what I’ve eaten, the most popular seems to be baechu (Chinese cabbage). The cabbage is then spiced, seasoned and fermented. Yep, I know that sounds quite vile, but it’s actually very tasty. And don’t even get me started on kimchi pancakes… mmm… *drools*

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I love this post from fellow Northern Irish-now-in-Daejeon blogger Hails. It’s strange how even after 2 weeks, I can relate to almost all of these little Korean quirks…

Someone on Facebook recently asked the question: “In which ways have you been Koreanised?”. After a bit of thought (and some inspiration from the replies he got), I came up with these Koreanisations – things that are now natural to me but which I know might seem strange if I were to continue with them when in my own country… The bowing. I bow a lot – I do it to say hello, goodbye, thank you, and sorry. Sometimes I catch myself bowing to the chi … Read More

via Coffee Helps

The work culture in Korea is definitely not what I’m used to. We start work at 9am every morning. Then, everyone just sits around drinking coffee, checking emails or surfing the web. At around 10am, we might think about doing some work. Then, we all go to the cafeteria to eat lunch at 11.30. I can’t work out why they eat lunch so early here. One possible reason that I can think of is that the elevators only work for specific times during the day: from 8.30 to 9,30, 12 to 1.20, and 4.30 to 6. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It’s part of a cost-cutting drive, as the Institute is mainly funded by the South Korean government, and with the recession hitting South Korea just as much as other countries, it has to appear to be spending money as wisely as possible. How much money is being saved by limiting elevator use is debatable, but at least it’s a start.

Then, after lunch we’re expected to be in work until 6pm. Most people stay in the lab longer than that, even if they’re not doing anything. It’ s just part of the mentality that you *have* to be seen at work, and presumably no-one cares what you’re doing, just as long as you can be seen. Apparently Korea has one of the longest average workweeks and overtime hours in the world.

At any given point during the day, I can be sure that of the 6 people in our lab, at least one of them will be head-down on their desk fast asleep. But hey, at least they’re in work!

Lunch time is also a weird affair. We go to the canteen on the Institute’s campus where we can choose from one of two different menus, and then go help ourselves buffet style. Both menus are the same price, so I’m not too sure why you’re restricted to only choosing food from one. Once you’ve got you’re food, you then have to eat really fast. I’m sure that’s fine for my Korean colleagues, but eating noodle soup with chopsticks isn’t an easy task when you’ve only lived in Asia for a week. Then, when the last person has put the last morsel of food into their mouths, everyone stands up, takes their trays to the hatch and leaves. Koreans don’t even drink anything with their meals, perhaps as it’s wasting valuable desk snoozing time…

My first post from Korea!

After a long journey from London, I finally made it to Daejeon yesterday evening. I was greeted by my boss and the PhD student from the group and we went out for some food. Luckily we went to a place that had some English on the menu, and I had some rice and prawn thing with an egg on top. After that, I went to my dorm. Seems like I’m sharing with someone, though I haven’t seen him yet…

After a loooong sleep, I woke up this afternoon and went for a wander into town to try and find some bed sheets. Found a place called Home Plus (which has almost God-like status amongst the ex-pats here. It’s more or less Wal-Mart, though when I went in, it seems like it’s owned by Tesco. Same style labels, and their own-brand products are sometimes actually Tesco stuff). Didn’t have any luck finding bed sheets, but at least I knew where it was.

Photos!

Had got in touch with some of the other placement students, and agreed to meet them at KRIBB (my workplace). Easy enough, I thought. Except when I left the campus where I’m staying, I turned the wrong way. Took me an hour to find KRIBB, by which point, the students had given up and gone back. Frantically Facebooked them on my phone (dread to think how much it cost), and luckily they were still about. Oh, how great it was to finally talk to people who could speak English. We got some food, which is *really* cheap out here. And yummy. There are some dubious things in the food, and I’m going to try as much as possible to eat non-meat things. I think it might be somewhat tricky though. Sofie taught me the word for “meat” in Korean, so hopefully I’ll be ok.

We went back to Home Plus after meeting up with some other ex-pats in an ex-pat bar. Somewhere I think I’ll be spending a lot of time downing soju and whatever else is drunk here.

Anyway, some first impressions.

It’s like America. Only everything is in Korean. It really is. There’s so much choice. A lot of people drive big cars. They have most American chains you could think of (Dunkin’ Donuts…). They have coffee shops that claim to have the best coffee in the world. Food is cheap.  It’s very green. It’s not as hot as I’d been led to believe, though of course that might change.

Starting work tomorrow, so going to get an earlyish night now…