Wednesday, September 9, 2009
the ultimate tongue-twister of ultimate destiny
Going to lunch today, we passed a shoe shop (where they sell you soles) named "Soul." That is all.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
in the year 2000...
At every cafeteria on campus, the glasses (they're actually made of metal) for water are kept in something that looks like an incubator/refrigerator. Whenever I get a glass, however, it comes out at room temperature. Today, I actually looked at the text on the incubator thing-y. It is, of course, an ultraviolet sterilizer.
Monday, September 7, 2009
we have to stop meeting this way
Friendly-man-in-a-shirt-and-tie was back at the bibimbab joint today at lunch. I guess it is his job (which, like most jobs, involves not doing it on weekends). He remembered me and pointed out that we were both confused: the bibimbab is always vegetarian. I can now rest easy in the knowledge that I can have mediocre bibimbab whenever I want.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
still 'round the corner we may meet
And so ends one of the longest weeks of my life, which is an odd thing to say, because it was, technically, the shortest week of my life,the International Date Line having swallowed Tuesday. Weird.
Operation: Eat Something remains a challenge. I have found a few Italian joints that have enough English on the menu for me to tell what I can and cannot eat. Granted, I just ordered pizza margherita and got a cheese pizza sprinkled with dried basil (that would be funnier if I had a good Ray Liotta impression), but I knew there wasn't any meat on it. Friday night, I had a glimmer of hope.
This is the Ewha Campus Complex (student union building; also, conveniently, where the command module docks "District 9" style). Somewhere in that mass of glass and glass doors is a restaurant where, on Friday night at least, a friendly man in a shirt and tie was waiting by the counter to help me order my bibimbab without whatever meat usually goes in bibimbab. At first, I thought that was his job, but he wasn't there when I went back for Saturday lunch, so I'm guessing he was just another data point in the "Koreans are in general really friendly and helpful" column. Oh, well. The bibimbab was mediocre anyway.
Operation: Don't Get Homesick is also proving to be something of a challenge. I met one of the professors the other day. Apparently, the floor we're supposed to be on is still under construction so "no one's here" meaning no one's here to tell me what to do meaning I spend most of my days reading the arXiv trying to figure out how to extend a thesis whose conclusion was "yup, everything we thought we know we still seem to know." Fortunately, there's Skype and lots of wonderful people on Skype whom I love very much telling me to go out and explore. So here goes.
On Saturday, I stepped off of campus and just started walking. This is what Seoul looks like as you're doing that.
It eventually starts to look like a normal city, but not before first looking like something out of an Indiana Jones movie
This is a... I don't know what the word for it would be, that abuts a nice little wooded park featuring a dirt soccer field and rebar-enforced concrete benches painted to look like they're made of wood. Less than a mile beyond this is an art museum and a maze of narrow streets that didn't really warrant a photo. On my way back to campus, I ran into a concert taking place outside of a large shopping complex. The opening band (a nice little pop rock ensemble) was pretty good. The next band sounded like a Korean boy band with guitars, so I left.
On Sunday, I hopped on a subway (a task made at all possible by yet another randomly helpful Korean who stopped me on my third trip between the ticket machine and the map and offered to help me buy the right ticket) and made my way to Olympic park, formerly the site of the '88 Olympics.
As you approach the park, the street is lined with statues commemorating Olympian activities and the Olympians who do them. Here are some of my favorites.
(Rhythmic?) gymnasts.
Archers, complete with Robin Hood hats (oo-di-lally!)
Runners amputated at the waste (because everything else is just a place to put Gatorade)
Equestrians (complete with anatomically correct stallions)
And my all-time favorite: Captain Badminton rides his shuttlecock to infinity and beyond!
You enter the park under the peace arch
which is decorated underneath with dragons and phoenixes (phoenii?)
and flanked by rows of what I can only describe as "googly heads"
The arch stands over a broad flagstone courtyard buzzing with bikes and rollerblades (and a father and son playing baseball). Beyond this courtyard is a little amphitheater where a middle school jazz band was doing a sound check (I say they were middle schoolers because there were way too many saxophones; I say they were doing a sound check because the director kept cutting them off before the solo section) and a not so little sculpture garden.
These statues were less athletically themed, but still Olympian in that the artists were from all over the world and the Olympics, really, is about everything that is awesome. Again, highlights with snide captions.
An army of ugnauts made out of what I think must be...
...old manhole covers.
Gredo (from Star Wars) as a Seraph.
A visitor from Pan's Labyrinth.
The chevalier of Candyland.
I didn't get to see all of the park before the setting sun and my throbbing heel (don't ask, I don't understand it, either; it just hurts) forced me back. It looks like it might be a fun place to run (once I deal with that heel thing). For now, I'm just happy that it lifted my homesick spirits a little.
1 week down.
103 to go.
Almost 1%.
I can do this.
Operation: Eat Something remains a challenge. I have found a few Italian joints that have enough English on the menu for me to tell what I can and cannot eat. Granted, I just ordered pizza margherita and got a cheese pizza sprinkled with dried basil (that would be funnier if I had a good Ray Liotta impression), but I knew there wasn't any meat on it. Friday night, I had a glimmer of hope.
This is the Ewha Campus Complex (student union building; also, conveniently, where the command module docks "District 9" style). Somewhere in that mass of glass and glass doors is a restaurant where, on Friday night at least, a friendly man in a shirt and tie was waiting by the counter to help me order my bibimbab without whatever meat usually goes in bibimbab. At first, I thought that was his job, but he wasn't there when I went back for Saturday lunch, so I'm guessing he was just another data point in the "Koreans are in general really friendly and helpful" column. Oh, well. The bibimbab was mediocre anyway.
Operation: Don't Get Homesick is also proving to be something of a challenge. I met one of the professors the other day. Apparently, the floor we're supposed to be on is still under construction so "no one's here" meaning no one's here to tell me what to do meaning I spend most of my days reading the arXiv trying to figure out how to extend a thesis whose conclusion was "yup, everything we thought we know we still seem to know." Fortunately, there's Skype and lots of wonderful people on Skype whom I love very much telling me to go out and explore. So here goes.
On Saturday, I stepped off of campus and just started walking. This is what Seoul looks like as you're doing that.
It eventually starts to look like a normal city, but not before first looking like something out of an Indiana Jones movie
This is a... I don't know what the word for it would be, that abuts a nice little wooded park featuring a dirt soccer field and rebar-enforced concrete benches painted to look like they're made of wood. Less than a mile beyond this is an art museum and a maze of narrow streets that didn't really warrant a photo. On my way back to campus, I ran into a concert taking place outside of a large shopping complex. The opening band (a nice little pop rock ensemble) was pretty good. The next band sounded like a Korean boy band with guitars, so I left.
On Sunday, I hopped on a subway (a task made at all possible by yet another randomly helpful Korean who stopped me on my third trip between the ticket machine and the map and offered to help me buy the right ticket) and made my way to Olympic park, formerly the site of the '88 Olympics.
As you approach the park, the street is lined with statues commemorating Olympian activities and the Olympians who do them. Here are some of my favorites.
(Rhythmic?) gymnasts.
Archers, complete with Robin Hood hats (oo-di-lally!)
Runners amputated at the waste (because everything else is just a place to put Gatorade)
Equestrians (complete with anatomically correct stallions)
And my all-time favorite: Captain Badminton rides his shuttlecock to infinity and beyond!
You enter the park under the peace arch
which is decorated underneath with dragons and phoenixes (phoenii?)
and flanked by rows of what I can only describe as "googly heads"
The arch stands over a broad flagstone courtyard buzzing with bikes and rollerblades (and a father and son playing baseball). Beyond this courtyard is a little amphitheater where a middle school jazz band was doing a sound check (I say they were middle schoolers because there were way too many saxophones; I say they were doing a sound check because the director kept cutting them off before the solo section) and a not so little sculpture garden.
These statues were less athletically themed, but still Olympian in that the artists were from all over the world and the Olympics, really, is about everything that is awesome. Again, highlights with snide captions.
An army of ugnauts made out of what I think must be...
...old manhole covers.
Gredo (from Star Wars) as a Seraph.
A visitor from Pan's Labyrinth.
The chevalier of Candyland.
I didn't get to see all of the park before the setting sun and my throbbing heel (don't ask, I don't understand it, either; it just hurts) forced me back. It looks like it might be a fun place to run (once I deal with that heel thing). For now, I'm just happy that it lifted my homesick spirits a little.
1 week down.
103 to go.
Almost 1%.
I can do this.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers
3 hours of packing and good-bye pancakes, 2 hours of airport security, 11 hours of flying, and 0.5 hours on a bus left me in no condition to find my way across a strange university campus; especially after I dropped my map in the my rush to get my luggage (all 100 lbs. of it) onto said bus. Fortunately, people in general (or at least in Seoul) are not as bad an idea as global warming would lead you to believe.
a) the bus dropped me off at the corner of a 4 lane road and an 8 lane road. The university was on the other side of the 8 lane road. The only way to "cross" it was to go under it through the subway station right off campus. Trundling my way up the steps on the other side, I was stopped by a random stranger who volunteered (though there wasn't much communication involved) to help me carry the 50 lbs. suitcase not strapped to my back up to the other side.
b) once I'd left the subway station, it was still not apparent where I was. Two blocks of street shops and neon-lights lay between me and anything that remotely looked like a college campus. I eventually got to campus, but was so frazzled by then, I was in no mood to wander aimlessly between buildings, looking for English signage (and, like I said, I'd lost my map). Fortunately, two exchange students who'd already been here for a few months recognized my plight and offered to lead me to the international house/dormitory office. 10 signatures later (at least one of which attested to the fact that I don't have the swine flu) I arrived here:
This is my room. Note the dormitudiness of it. Falling asleep last night, I actually thought I smelled the Whitman dining hall at breakfast.
These are the ridiculously steep stairs leading up to my bed. Sleep-walking has now officially replaced my driver's license as the most likely reason I will break my leg.
And, for good measure: this is the International Education Building, which houses the "Institute for the Early Universe" ("-iverse, -iverse, -iverse, -iverse...") We're on the 8th floor. I think there are 14 in total.
It was very quiet in the office today. Aside from the secretaries, I didn't see another soul for 3 hours. Then Kyoung Kyoo (there's no way in hell I spelled that correctly) arrived. He's a string theory post-doc. He's been here since April. He guided me to and through lunch (Hanover readers: think larger portions of the little appetizers you get at Yama's) and, most important of all, showed me where the fifty-cent coffee was to be had.
And now I prepare to sleep my second night in Korea. I'm still in survival mode (read: I don't actually believe I'm going to live here for the next two years).
When Nature (one of the secretaries) asked to hold on to my passport for a week, I freaked out a little inside. I either think the sky is going to fall on me and I'm going to need some kind of international identification, or I think that one week is a significant portion of my time here.
Tonight for dinner I had 2 bananas and 2 nectarines. A small fruit stand was all I could find in the surrounding mass of commercialdom that I could be absotively, posilutely sure was vegetarian. I could live that way for a week or even a month, but not 2 years. Either my Korean will have to improve, I'll have to figure out how to use Korean google maps (any time I go to google, the characters appear in Korean; there is no "English" button), or... still not sure.
a) the bus dropped me off at the corner of a 4 lane road and an 8 lane road. The university was on the other side of the 8 lane road. The only way to "cross" it was to go under it through the subway station right off campus. Trundling my way up the steps on the other side, I was stopped by a random stranger who volunteered (though there wasn't much communication involved) to help me carry the 50 lbs. suitcase not strapped to my back up to the other side.
b) once I'd left the subway station, it was still not apparent where I was. Two blocks of street shops and neon-lights lay between me and anything that remotely looked like a college campus. I eventually got to campus, but was so frazzled by then, I was in no mood to wander aimlessly between buildings, looking for English signage (and, like I said, I'd lost my map). Fortunately, two exchange students who'd already been here for a few months recognized my plight and offered to lead me to the international house/dormitory office. 10 signatures later (at least one of which attested to the fact that I don't have the swine flu) I arrived here:
This is my room. Note the dormitudiness of it. Falling asleep last night, I actually thought I smelled the Whitman dining hall at breakfast.
These are the ridiculously steep stairs leading up to my bed. Sleep-walking has now officially replaced my driver's license as the most likely reason I will break my leg.
And, for good measure: this is the International Education Building, which houses the "Institute for the Early Universe" ("-iverse, -iverse, -iverse, -iverse...") We're on the 8th floor. I think there are 14 in total.
It was very quiet in the office today. Aside from the secretaries, I didn't see another soul for 3 hours. Then Kyoung Kyoo (there's no way in hell I spelled that correctly) arrived. He's a string theory post-doc. He's been here since April. He guided me to and through lunch (Hanover readers: think larger portions of the little appetizers you get at Yama's) and, most important of all, showed me where the fifty-cent coffee was to be had.
And now I prepare to sleep my second night in Korea. I'm still in survival mode (read: I don't actually believe I'm going to live here for the next two years).
When Nature (one of the secretaries) asked to hold on to my passport for a week, I freaked out a little inside. I either think the sky is going to fall on me and I'm going to need some kind of international identification, or I think that one week is a significant portion of my time here.
Tonight for dinner I had 2 bananas and 2 nectarines. A small fruit stand was all I could find in the surrounding mass of commercialdom that I could be absotively, posilutely sure was vegetarian. I could live that way for a week or even a month, but not 2 years. Either my Korean will have to improve, I'll have to figure out how to use Korean google maps (any time I go to google, the characters appear in Korean; there is no "English" button), or... still not sure.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
nowhere near Kansas
I owe you all a more detailed post, and I'll write one tonight. I would just like to point out that the intercom in my room (yes, it has an intercom) just came on to announce that "sterilization will be taking place in the whole dorm today, and will be lasting from 9am to 5pm." Apparently, I "may stay in my room during sterilization." Not sure why I'd want to, though...
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