pogoism

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

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…

Eurovision was last night. Germany took it seriously and won. In fairness, it was a good song. Especially her cute accent…

And the UK‘s dreadful entry came last. *sigh*

But! By FAR the best bit of the show (for me anyway) was that awesome flash mob across Europe! Seriously, fantastic. Even though it was pre-recorded.

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

– Winston Churchill

Flickr / Katchooo

I love radio. It’s so understated. It’s been around since 1922 and according to the latest Rajar figures, it’s popularity is at one of the highest points it’s ever been at. Yet people never really talk about it. You nearly always hear people going on about who has been kicked off Over the Rainbow, or what happened last night on Eastenders, but never anything about the radio.

There’s something much more personal about the radio, something I don’t seem to get from watching television. I wake up in the mornings to the Today Show and it’s almost like they’re talking to me. Just me. It’s much less about appearances, obviously, and so conversations and interviews sound so much more frank, more direct, more honest. I’m sure that’s not the case, yet it seems so comforting.

Paradoxically, my radio listening has increased much more because of the internet, and more specifically, podcasts. Podcasts allow me to listen to radio shows that previously geography would have prevented me from doing. Cases in point, some of the wonderful content produced by National Public Radio in the US, such as RadioLab, and Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Finally, the power of radio to elicit emotion and response from me is much greater than that of television or film. When I can’t sleep at night, I’ll often put in my earphone and listen to an hour of some of the finest radio broadcasting I’ve ever come across: This American Life. A typical episode of This American Life consists of a mixture of essay, field recordings, memoirs or short fiction based around a single theme. The quality of this show is second to none, from the moment I put my earphones in and hit play I’m enthralled for an hour and yearn for a new episodes to appear in my iTunes every Monday.

Long live the radio.

Hello blog! I haven’t written a proper update in a while, so I thought I’d come back and see if anyone is still reading this. So, what’s been happening I hear you cry. Well, truth be told, not a lot. Which is mainly why I’ve not been blogging. The last few weeks have been coming up to the end of this year, which meant that I had a heckuva lot of work to do. Firstly, I had to finish off my thesis. Luckily, the bulk of it was the actual research, which I’ve been in doing in the lab since September so writing it all up wasn’t too much of a pain. The trickiest part was trying to write it all in science lingo, which I’ve never had to do. It was easy enough once I was in the mindset of it though. After submitting that a few weeks ago, I’ve been mainly concentrating on exams. I’ve got 2 exams at the end of the month, and then at the beginning of June I’ve got my viva for my thesis. I’m hoping that should be straightforward enough – a 10 minute presentation on my results followed by a 5 minute grilling by a panel.

Anyway, enough of that. Some exciting stuff has happened in the last few months. I got accepted onto a PhD at Queen’s so, provided I get a 2.1, I’m in Belfast for another 3 years. I’m really excited as it’s in the same group as I did my research project in, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve also been accepted to do a placement in Korea this summer. I’m going in less than 2 months, and it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’ve no idea what to expect. I know very little about Korea, very little about the customs and what’s expected of me, and I certainly can’t speak any Korean. From what I’ve read, English isn’t particularly widely spoken there. Could be a steep learning curve! I did learn how to write my name though (릴리 조엘) and I’m getting to grips with learning the alphabet. When I’m out there I’ll be living in Daejeon and working for the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology.

So, yeh… Korea should give me some interesting stuff to blog about – something there’s been a distinct lack of in the past few months. Sorry about that…

…is trending on Twitter. Which makes me hopeful.

Vote Lib Dem :)