Korean Drinking

This was our final day in Korea.

Our work is finally done and we traveled back to Seoul. We stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel Coex which is on top of a large shopping mall. We arrived at about 5:00PM and we had dinner reservations at 7:00 in one of the restaurants in the hotel. My colleague, who I will call Rodney, and I had two hours to put to good use. We went down to the mall to get some gifts for our families. I found some stainless steel chopsticks for the Chief because she hates the bamboo type that is found at most Asian restaurants. She hates wood in her mouth… she is married after all.

We finish shopping and go and explore the Buddhist temple across the street from the hotel. It was neat; the monks were playing drums and ringing bells. They have rhythm.

After this we meet for dinner. There are two people from the United States, Rodney and I, and 6 Koreans. The owner of the company, 3 salesmen for said company, one girl from marketing and one girl in logistics. The buffet is great and the people are fun to talk to. The buffet contains many more things than I expected. Some of the highlights include: crab legs, stuffed broiled lobster, sushi, various salads, cooked to order steaks, pastas, lamb chops, salmon, and many other dishes. A picture of a small part of the restaurant buffet is here. We drank wine, beer and soju with dinner. This night was planned to be a night of drinking and camaraderie between our two groups. The Big Boss told us that the drinking at dinner was round 1 of 3 rounds.

When we finished eating we said good bye to the BB and the girls since they were not going to attend the evening’s festivities. I have had at least two beers, 2+ glasses of wine and 2 shots of 40 proof soju and one shot of 20 proof soju. It was a long dinner but my liver was not up to the task of eliminating enough of the alcohol. Needless to say I was not feeling too bad.

The 5 of us jumped into two taxis and rode about 15 minutes. We were let out and walked down this alley between two main roads. We went inside a door and down some stairs to a kind of club like scene. The only difference is there were no people anywhere except for a guy with a clipboard and wearing a CIA style headset. He yelled some stuff in Korean, he had to yell to be heard over the music, and we were led to a small room with a large granite table and couches with pillows lining the walls. Of course there is a karaoke machine in one corner and a bathroom in another corner. I did not sing because of a previous experience playing Sing Star with co-workers. After the song I sang is finished you are rated on how well you did. Some of the ratings are: Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, Bad, and then there is what I received: Tone Deaf. My co-workers had never seen a rating that low before. So does that make me the best bad singer?

Anyway, I did not sing. Next they brought in some bottles of beer and at least two pint bottles of whiskey. At this point I knew that I needed to be careful about how much I drink. If I drink too much the room starts spinning and humor results, for everyone else.

Our Korean friends explain about the club and how it works. Basically the club has two different types of girls: Korean and Russian. I’m not sure why there are Russian girls but that is what they have. The club will bring in a line of girls and you pick who you like based totally on 20 second of looking with no talking. The first group of girls contained 3 Russian girls and 3 Korean girls. Since we gringos are the guests they let us pick first. I decide that since I am in Korea I should pick a Korean girl. I choose girl number 2 and she comes and sits next to me. She is wearing a short black dress and I think she is cute, or I would not have picked her. It is part of the culture I was in, don’t judge me.

We learn that this particular club is more on the tame side. They say there are basically 3 different levels of clubs, this one where there is no touching and the girls only sit and talk with you. At the second level club the girls talking to you are (or can be) topless, similar to some gentlemen’s clubs in the USA. The third level club has the basement rooms like I described and also has small private rooms above where you can do whatever you can negotiate. All of the salesmen said they didn’t know what happened in those private rooms. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge…

Rodney decides on a Russian girl in a tight red dress. I think he actually picked her before we knew we were supposed to pick. (I think he had drank a little more than me at this point) She climbs over the table and sits next to Rodney. Two of the salesmen pick the other two Korean girls but the third salesman was much pickier. He did not want the remaining Russian girl. The club brought in 6 more girls in two groups before he found someone suitable. How would you like to be one not picked? I guess they get used to it since that is the job they signed up for.

I learn the name of the girl I pick is Su Yung, I may not spell it correctly but that is what it sounded like to me. She is 25 years old and she speaks Engrish pretty well. She speaks my language much better than I speak Korean that is for sure so I should not be critical especially when I’m the idiot in her country.

As soon as all the girls sit down they start making us drinks. It appears that it is the girls’ job to get us as drunk as possible. They do this by putting the beer in a glass and keeping it full so it is difficult for you to tell how many glasses you have emptied. Then they start mixing in whiskey with the beer making it even tougher to keep track of consumption. The club also brought in a couple trays of fruit that the girls would feed to us on occasion. We were not hungry at all because of the buffet dinner but we managed to eat a piece or two each.

So we are sitting in the room making small talk with the girls. One of the salesmen decides he wants to sing so he gets up, picks a song and sings it. He was pretty good, nowhere near my Tone Deaf status. The other salesmen said he likes to sing and does it every time they go out. We gringos also learn that the entertainment of business clients is a big part of the Korean business culture. For example, the Singer went out every night the previous week with clients from a construction company. The construction guys are pretty wild and most of their nights don’t end until at least 4:00 am and most times they see the sunrise. The construction guys also go to a different level of club, normally level 3 but sometimes level 2.

After about an hour and a half the Salesmen order another girl. The 5 girls excuse themselves to the restroom, all at the same time… interesting. Another girl comes in wearing a teal dress and high heels. She turns on the music and starts to dance. She loses the dress and is wearing a matching bra and thong. Next the bra disappears. She’s not a magician she simply unfastens it and drops it to the floor. She proceeds to dance topless wearing a teal thong for a couple minutes, visiting all of us in turn. A new song starts to play so I think that is it. I was wrong. She proceeds, not to remove the thong but to unfasten it around one leg, sharing everything. She dances around with her underwear around one leg (not around her ankle but still in a somewhat normal position). She visits all of us in turn and concentrated a little more on Rodney than the rest of us. When this song is over she gets dressed and says some stuff to the boys in Korean and leaves.

Miraculously the 5 girls return as soon as the dancer leaves. They refill our drinks, tell us we are handsome, and we continue to converse in broken Engrish for another 15 minutes.

The girl chosen by Picky starts talking to my girl in rapid Korean. Both the salesmen sitting on my side of the room both look at her, then look at me. Then they switch to English and she says I look like Nicholas Cage. That is a new one to me. I am somewhat thin, have dark hair, I’m not quite as tall, and I’m not married to a Korean woman. I guess American men all look alike to them.

The girls did not think Rodney looked like anyone famous. His girl, the Red Russian, was talking to him, and she spoke English much better. They were carrying on a decent conversation. I do not know all of what they were talking about but I got one highlight in the cab ride home. Rodney said the Red Russian was on the Russian Olympic team as a gymnast when she was younger. Rodney believed her. Of course in Rodney's drunken state, he probably would have believed that I was the King of Mexico had I told him so. 

Maybe she was a gymnast in Russia. Olympic team, not so likely. I could be wrong. I didn't catch her real name and I doubt she would give it anyway. It might have been Regina Phalange, I'm not sure.

Then all at once the time is up and the girls say goodbye and leave.

The bill arrives and apparently it is up for discussion. They negotiate a price with the hostess, who is hot; I’m sure as a deterrent to lowering the price. Lucky for us Picky was the one paying and he works hard at the negotiation. I’m not sure how much the bill was lowered. Considering all the items we “consumed” in two hours:

• 1 room with karaoke machine
• 5 girls
• Roughly 12 bottles of beer
• 2 pints of whiskey
• 2 fruit trays (pineapple, 3 different types of melons – fruit not boobs,
• 1 stripper

After settling the bill, we say goodbye to two of our number and then get a taxi back to the hotel. By now it is 12:00 – 12:30, which is not late. In fact, it is time to be at work back in the Central Time Zone. So I do what anyone would do, ok, maybe it is just me. I called my wife, the Chief, to give a story and maybe entertain her office. Then I called my boss, then another co-worker. I wasn’t too entertaining this time as I was in Japan a couple years prior.

That is a story for another time.

More Pictures in Korean

Here are some more, with my comments (of course they are my comments... I'm writing it). These are from the same parks we visited on Sunday.


Here is a camera man and a director making what will likely be a very poor movie of the construction next to the park.

I don't know what this is.

I just like this picture.

This looks like a very happy place. The only problem is that it was closed during our visit. 

Here is another picture from the dam near Chunju.

This is a Korean BBQ. If you have a chance to visit one I highly recommend it. In this case a tub of glowing charcoal was placed in the center fixture on the table. A grate was placed over it and marinated raw meat was brought out. You are responsible for cooking the meat but if you don't know what you are doing, the restaurant staff will assist. The meal is traditional Korean style with many small community dishes. 

One last picture for now. 

It appears Korean's cannot drive any better than Americans.

Excitement!!

I have some more Korea pictures and a story that I need to finish up but first...


After a wait from early March to yesterday (April 21), I finally received my new bike. I went through a professional bike fit to adjust the seat up and down and forward and back. We lowered and then changed the stem from 100mm to 90mm. Before all of that the fitter tested me for flexibility and in two cases used large angle finders to determine how flexible I am. The entire process took an hour and 15 minutes. Then I loaded up the bike on my bike rack and took it home. 


Here are some pictures:

I also noticed Trek changed the picture on their Project One start page to what appears to be my bike with different wheels...  


My new bike with the pedals weighs 16.9 pounds. Now I have no excuses.

I Hope You Can See These (Picture in Korean)

We went on a picture taking expedition yesterday and here are a few of the results. I know I'm here for work, but it was Sunday. Just in case you were wondering, sometimes I take pictures of random stuff that amuses me. I'm sure there will be some of that below.

This is called the Central Pagoda and marks the central point of South Korea. 

We went to a park next to the city on Chongju that was next to a hydroelectric plant. In the park was a large set of stairs. My colleague did not want to climb the stairs. Here is a picture of him from the top. I put an arrow on him.

Here is proof that the Earth is somewhat cannibalistic. It is eating a tree and a rock.

Sometimes even the Earth needs a little cleaning. Here is me helping out.

I just want to do my part for the Earth. Here is, well, I'm not sure what this is. I think he might follow me back to the hotel and whistle all night.

I don't understand a lot of art and I don't even attempt to. I will comment about it... Here is a statue of a deer in its natural habitat: next to three bronze onion volcanoes from a hibachi grill. 

In case you didn't notice. The deer in the above picture is mobile and should be considered dangerous. When nobody is looking, he charges unsuspecting park guests and gores them with his bronze ears. You can tell by the shine on the ears and the "bull staring at a red cape" look on his face. Those eyes are pure evil.

That is all for this time. More to come.

Two for the Price of One

First Degree Burns and the Attack of the Shower Curtain

Korea is a country of smokers, plain and simple. I am not sure about the women but I think all the men at the company I am visiting smoke except for two. Two out of 55 is not very good odds. Needless to say, the hotel we are staying in does not have any non-smoking rooms. I was initially scared that my room would smell like an ash tray. It does not smell bad and for the first 3 days I did not notice the smoke at all.

This morning I woke up and went into the bathroom to put my contact lenses in before my morning run. I smelled a little smoke for the first time. I didn’t think anything about it. I went for my run which consisted of 4 miles in 40°F weather wearing shorts and a long sleeved shirt with a short sleeved shirt over top. I did not pack running pants because I thought I would be able to use a treadmill at the gym…

I returned to my room about 35 minutes after I left and went into the bathroom to strip down so I did not sweat too much while I stretched. I think I walked into the smoking room in Atlanta’s International airport. Every vent on adjacent rooms must dump into my bathroom. I think I smoked at least a pack of cigarettes second hand during my shower and morning grumpy. 


Since Koreans, like the Japanese, enjoy hot baths, the water at this hotel is extremely hot.

This is the faucet and you will notice the hot (left side) and cold water lines (right side) come out of the wall and mix before being unleashed on unsuspecting bathers. I have the water temperature set so it is about 55% hot water and 45% cold water. This is a pretty good mix for me because I like hot showers after a cold outdoor run. The water steams at this temperature setting. This particular morning I reached down with my left hand instead of my right hand to trigger the water to go from the tub to the shower. In the process I touched the hot water side next to where the line comes out of the wall. I will not do it again. I think I am going to have a blister on the end of my little finger. 

When I got into the shower today I noticed that something was different. I was being attacked by the shower curtain. I am not sure why. I get out of the shower and close the door to the bathroom thinking maybe there is a breeze from the open window in the bedroom. It did not help the situation. The maid moved the shower curtain rod to an unexpected place, nearly in the middle of the shower as opposed to the outside edge of the shower. Here is a quick diagram.

I don’t like the shower curtain touching me, especially in a hotel. I love the Hampton Inn showers with the shower rod that curves away from the tub/shower to prevent bather contact. They are great. I'm not sure why the housekeeper moved the shower curtain. It was correct the yesterday. I think it is because I hung my towel from the shower curtain. Since it is a spring loaded shower curtain rod I think when the housekeeper pulled the towel down the entire shower curtain came down with the towel. 

For your viewing enjoyment here is a picture of the bar across the street from the hotel.

Korean Surprises 2

On our third night in Korea we went to a fish restaurant. At least it was called a fish restaurant by our Korean coworkers. The meal was traditional Korean style with many different small bowls each containing something different. The bowls contain different vegetables from sea weed, to the green part of a garlic plant, to kimchi. All of these small bowls were already set out the table when we arrived at the restaurant. We sat down and started eating. One of the small dishes new to me was a deep fried green chili. It was not greasy and was basically a husk and was not spicy but had a mild flavor of chili.

During the meal there were different main dishes brought out and placed on the table at intervals. These included some new dishes that I have not had previously. One was described to us as snails and the internet translation was “whelk”. I have never heard of whelk but as it turns out it is a common name for some sea snails. The snail was pretty good. It had a consistency of octopus, slightly chewy but it was good.

Another main dish that came out had a crab cake and two different types of rice cakes. I’m not sure about the accuracy of the translation of rice cake. They were chewy, more solid than flan, type cakes. The crab cake and the rice cakes were very good in spite of the rice cakes having a gooey texture.

The dish that is the most memorable is a sandwich or grouping of three things. There are three items on the plate in sections. The first morsel is a small piece of roast pork. The second thing is a Korean standard, kimchi with red pepper paste (this is present at every meal in Korea). The third dish was fish, skate to be exact. I have never had skate before and I certainly have not had this particular method of preparing it. The skate is not cooked but it is marinated. I did not receive a good translation of the marinade, but what I could gather is: the digestive juices of some animal. So this fish is marinated in stomach acid from an animal, could be a cow or a pig but my guess is it was the stomach acid of a dead feces eating chicken. The skate had the aroma of ammonia. Also there were some rougher textured pieces of the fish that made me think of gristle. Maybe it was slightly digested bone fragments. Now, kimchi is pretty strong but it is nowhere near strong enough to cover up the ammonia taste of the fish. It took 2 glasses of beer and about 15 minutes before the smell left my sinuses. 

Here is a list of popular Korean foods. You will notice this dish is nowhere on this list. I did not take a picture of it but I found one on flickr here. Searching on the internet tells me it is fermented skate. The kimchi and pork portions are not bad, but I would pass on the fish.

My colleague having never traveled to Korea before ate another dish for the first time. I ate this particular dish on another occasion and decided to pass this time. It looks very appetizing. It is crab legs. The difference between this dish and American crab legs is simple. American crab legs are cooked. My colleague grabbed one and asked how to eat it since it would be very difficult to crack open crab legs with chop sticks. He used his hands and a fork to break open the legs and ate a small piece of the slimy meat. He said later it was not good.

When my colleague was trying the fish from the stomach of a dead feces eating chicken, he decided mid chew that he did not want to keep the gristle piece in his mouth, let alone swallow it. So he reached into his mouth and took it out and placed it in an empty bowl.

When we were walking to our respective rooms he said to me, “I have to go wash the fish smell off my hands. I guess I should not tell my girlfriend that…”

Korean Surprises

I am travelling for work in Korea. A colleague and I arrived in Seoul at about 4:30 pm. We are staying in a smaller town about a 2 hour drive from Seoul Inchon airport. It was a long first day. A mere 13 ½ hour flight from Chicago to Seoul followed by a 2 hour car ride is always a good time.

We had a good dinner of Korean barbeque at a local restaurant. Korean barbeque is very good. If you have a local restaurant I highly recommend trying it. You can skip the kimchi if you like, although I think it is pretty good, plus there is an entire museum devoted to it. Here is some information about the kimchi museum in Korea here

We are staying at the Grand Tourist Hotel. The only problem is the level of English is not as high as I would like. I can’t really complain because I am in their country and I speak absolutely no Korean.

The first night I normally sleep well but I wake up a few times because of the 14 hour time difference. This was the case last night. I think I woke up 3 times in the night and did not have any trouble going back to sleep until about 5:30 am local time. Then I was up for the day.

My colleague did not have as good a night as I did. He could not figure out how to turn the lights off in his room. None of the switches on the walls turned off the lights above the bed. The rooms also have the large key that must be put into the slot inside the door in order to turn the power on inside the room, so one would assume that removing the key would cut the power to the lights. This did not work either. 

Also due to the language barrier he could not convey that he wanted someone to come to his room and show him how to turn the lights out. So sleeping with a pillow or blanket over your head is not conducive to a good night sleep. Is that because of the Dutch oven effect? He also received a phone call at about 2:30am from a company in Indiana to let him know a part he ordered for his boat arrived and he can pick it up any time.

If you are wondering here are the controls for the lights in the hotel room.

Control Panel

The next morning we were meeting for breakfast at 8:00 and we would be taken to the factory at 8:30. I arrived for breakfast about 20 minutes early and decided to check out the workout room/sauna I noticed in the directory inside the elevator. I guess working out in Korea is a little different than in the USA. Before entering the “gym” I had to remove my shoes. So I’m not sure how I am going to run on a treadmill without shoes. It does not sound to appealing to me. So I take a few steps into the gym and sure enough, I spot a treadmill in one corner of the next room. I walk towards it and when I make it about half way there I look to my left. There is a Korean guy standing there next to a towel rack… naked. Not even wearing a towel. Not even attempting to get a towel off the rack. I’m not sure what kind of gym this is supposed to be so I turn around and walk back out.

I think I will run outside tomorrow.

I’m not sure what happened to this chair. I know if I am going to be sitting in it I will be using a towel.

I also wonder if there is some type of bug problem with this hotel. My colleague also says there is some of this paraphernalia in his room.

On the bright side, the internet is blindingly fast. Except when I am connected to my company’s VPN, then it is as slow as always.

There is also a toe stubbing device in the bath tub/shower. I think it is really an ass pad.

I know the reason for the design of the bath tub. The person will draw out a hot bath. Before getting into the bath they will wash utilizing the drain on the floor of the bathroom. This also explains why you have to step down into the bathroom and also why the hotel provides you with bathroom shoes – to keep you out of your own nastiness. Notice the bathroom shoes are designed for very tiny feet.


Here are my steel toe shoes next to the bathroom shoes.

There are also slippers for the rest of the hotel room. And to go into one section of the factory it is required that you change out of your shoes and into the slippers provided. This is the lab and it is a clean room. In our lab in Indian we are required to wear steel toe shoes. I have never found any steel toe slippers but maybe they are out there.