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Korea 2007 Continued ..
Korean Rock Garden Wednesday, July 4
Melatonin Works! I managed to sleep through the night. I think, maybe, being very tired helped a little as well? :-)
Breakfast in the Executive Lounge provided an interesting view of Seoul (see right). The pattern you see in the foreground is a 'Korean Rock Garden' (loosely based on the Chinese Rock Garden concept). It's a "no-touchy" kind of garden, I am told.
"No Touchy" reminds me of something. Korean people learn English mostly from books and as a result have strange pronunciations for many words. One common thing they do is to pronounce the silent E's in words. For example, They all pronounce Large as Large-eee, and Confused as Confuse-Ed.
They do this with almost all English words - and we have a lot of words ending in E or ED. Today one of the Koreans responded to me by saying "I am Confuse-Ed" - and I answered him "Yes, you are." (PS: this happens, I think, because written Korean is 100% pronounced as it is written - they just carry that over into English)
The Sexy Barber
Read carefully. There's an important lesson below. :-)
My shaver wasn't working this morning - so I stopped by the desk to see if I could borrow a disposable blade. No joy! But .. as luck would have it .. the girl at the desk told me there is a barber across the street. Perfect! Off I went to get a shave.
I can't read Korean, but, luckily I found a shop on the corner marked with the universal barber-pole. Couldn't miss it. It was lit-up, flashing, and slowly spinning.
Well ... guess what? It turns out that, in Korea, that sign does not mean barber! It means something quite different! And, being the oblivious engineer that I am, I didn't catch on when I walked in and found no barber chairs.
The front desk with the half-naked Korean girl didn't set off any bells either (well .. not the right kind of bells, anyway). I said "shave" - making the universal hand-gesture for shaving. She said something (sexy) in Korean and directed me to a little room on the side.
"This must be where the barber chair is" I thought. Nope! No Chair. A little bed .. yes! But no chair. And no barber, either. Instead: another girl.
This time I figured it out! I knew, you see, that barbers do not conduct their business stark naked and armed only with a Condom!
The barber shop was two stores further down. Marked, simply enough, in English: 'Barber'. But I was kind of shaken up - and you could tell by looking at me that I had recently been near a naked woman - so I went back to the hotel. Why did the girl at the hotel not warn me about this?
Monsoon Season
The most amazing downpour of rain I have ever seen assaulted the city as we were driving from the Hotel to the Hitron office (and I was still unshaven). It was truly spectacular - so heavy at times that all the cars would stop and flick-on their Hazard lights. Wipers just couldn't clear it and it was impossible to see past the water-covered windshield. Mr Choi, who was driving me, tells me it's perfectly normal for this time of year - which happens to be the Monsoon Season. Figures that I would happen to show up for the Monsoon Season!
Drive Much?
Mr Choi was totally lost the whole way to the office (and he works there). He even had a GPS in the car but kept ignoring the directions and going the opposite way from what it said. We crossed the Han River 5 times on the way there! Each time I looked over and could see the bridge we had crossed the previous time to one side of the car or the other. We crossed 5 bridges back and forth along the same stretch of River .. with Mr Choi telling me that he was taking a short cut. I managed not to burst out laughing the first 4 times he said "I am taking a short cut" - but on the 5th time I just couldn't hold it anymore. I think Mr Choi lost face today.
Melatonin Works! I managed to sleep through the night. I think, maybe, being very tired helped a little as well? :-)
Breakfast in the Executive Lounge provided an interesting view of Seoul (see right). The pattern you see in the foreground is a 'Korean Rock Garden' (loosely based on the Chinese Rock Garden concept). It's a "no-touchy" kind of garden, I am told.
"No Touchy" reminds me of something. Korean people learn English mostly from books and as a result have strange pronunciations for many words. One common thing they do is to pronounce the silent E's in words. For example, They all pronounce Large as Large-eee, and Confused as Confuse-Ed.
They do this with almost all English words - and we have a lot of words ending in E or ED. Today one of the Koreans responded to me by saying "I am Confuse-Ed" - and I answered him "Yes, you are." (PS: this happens, I think, because written Korean is 100% pronounced as it is written - they just carry that over into English)
The Sexy Barber
Read carefully. There's an important lesson below. :-)
My shaver wasn't working this morning - so I stopped by the desk to see if I could borrow a disposable blade. No joy! But .. as luck would have it .. the girl at the desk told me there is a barber across the street. Perfect! Off I went to get a shave.
I can't read Korean, but, luckily I found a shop on the corner marked with the universal barber-pole. Couldn't miss it. It was lit-up, flashing, and slowly spinning.
Well ... guess what? It turns out that, in Korea, that sign does not mean barber! It means something quite different! And, being the oblivious engineer that I am, I didn't catch on when I walked in and found no barber chairs.
The front desk with the half-naked Korean girl didn't set off any bells either (well .. not the right kind of bells, anyway). I said "shave" - making the universal hand-gesture for shaving. She said something (sexy) in Korean and directed me to a little room on the side.
"This must be where the barber chair is" I thought. Nope! No Chair. A little bed .. yes! But no chair. And no barber, either. Instead: another girl.
This time I figured it out! I knew, you see, that barbers do not conduct their business stark naked and armed only with a Condom!
The barber shop was two stores further down. Marked, simply enough, in English: 'Barber'. But I was kind of shaken up - and you could tell by looking at me that I had recently been near a naked woman - so I went back to the hotel. Why did the girl at the hotel not warn me about this?
Monsoon Season
The most amazing downpour of rain I have ever seen assaulted the city as we were driving from the Hotel to the Hitron office (and I was still unshaven). It was truly spectacular - so heavy at times that all the cars would stop and flick-on their Hazard lights. Wipers just couldn't clear it and it was impossible to see past the water-covered windshield. Mr Choi, who was driving me, tells me it's perfectly normal for this time of year - which happens to be the Monsoon Season. Figures that I would happen to show up for the Monsoon Season!
Drive Much?
Mr Choi was totally lost the whole way to the office (and he works there). He even had a GPS in the car but kept ignoring the directions and going the opposite way from what it said. We crossed the Han River 5 times on the way there! Each time I looked over and could see the bridge we had crossed the previous time to one side of the car or the other. We crossed 5 bridges back and forth along the same stretch of River .. with Mr Choi telling me that he was taking a short cut. I managed not to burst out laughing the first 4 times he said "I am taking a short cut" - but on the 5th time I just couldn't hold it anymore. I think Mr Choi lost face today.