Food, Drinks and Mr Segway

I was talking to Polish Damien in Australia today and he told me that on my blog "It pretty much looks like all I do is eat, party and travel." I think that's the first ever blog critique I've had from a Polish guy. Muchly appreciated. It's his 27th birthday today and I'm sure he'll be celebrating in style with the guys back home. Happy Birthday Damien!

In this photo is an U-dong hotpot with stuffed pockets of aerated soybean and various other goodies. On the right is some sundried chilli cashew chicken. We chose to enjoy this particular meal with some apple and kiwi soju cocktails.

Some time ago, a group of adoptees came down to Busan for a quick tour and we met up after work for some drinks. I'm pretty much the only GOA'L affiliated adoptee down here, so I feel like an ambassador of sorts.


Here's a new drinking game that Eric taught us that night. Two lines of people are on either side of the tables. Each person in turn (one after the other) has to drink the beer from their own paper cup and then put it on the edge of the table. The next person can only start drinking once the previous person has flipped the cup so that it lands properly on the table. The first line to finish wins.

We played this game a few times.

I led the group to the U2 bar in Haeundae, somewhere I hadn't been in a while. U2 is fairly nice and they serve free popcorn. The owner speaks a fair bit of English and likes to drink tequila shots.

One of the European adoptees decided it would be a good idea if we all took our shoes off and danced. Mine are the brown ones in the centre.

Then Eric thought it would be a good idea if we all went for a swim at the beach at 2am. I wasn't particularly in the mood for it, but was eventually persuaded. Catching the taxi back home with wet pants in the wee hours of the morning was an interesting experience.

I also lost my old cell phone at some point that night.

Meet Lee's new and improved cell phone. It has a DMB connection, which means I can watch free television broadcasts on a few different channels. On the screen in this photo there's a Beijing Olympics replay of Park Tae-Hwan winning the 400m.

Soon after the other adoptees left, Marie Fleur, another French adoptee from Seoul came down for a visit. I didn't have much time to show her around because of work commitments. We had a walk around Gwangan and visited this live seafood shop. That's her on the right, with her sister and sister's husband. Live seafood still impresses me to some degree and it's funny to see how the little Korean kids can just pick up an octopus like it's a toy.

Heather and I are going fairly well these days. My only regular teaching duties during the week are on Friday nights, when I head to her branch to teach an upper level reading class. That means I also get to join in their Friday night hwe-shiks (after-work dinners).

Here are the admin staff of the Hwamyeong branch. Heather received a promotion yesterday to the title of wonjang, which is the branch manager. We've both come a long way since our humble beginnings at the old Busanjin branch in 2006.

Near our house there's a small unstaffed amusement outlet. In this photo, you can see two versions of the ubiquitous punching machines here. You put in a coin and get to see how hard you can punch. You also find out how easy it is to sprain your wrist by trying to impress your friends.

Here's Anthony, one of our new additions, in the batting cages. These were entirely coin-operated as well. You just pick up the bat and a machine will launch baseballs at you.

Have you seen the new Star Wars release? It's an animation based on Attack of the Clones. I've always been a big fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, but unfortunately showing an enthusiasm for such things here results in one being labelled a nerd. Jef's definition of a nerd is when someone owns a twelve-sided die (singular: dice). But I don't own one of those.

Yet.

Heather and I found a new favourite restaurant. It's called Van Gogh's Terrace and it's in the Haeundae area near the APEC building. They specialise in particularly good Italian food and French champagne. It's right next to the water and you can see the Gwangan bridge at night. We go down here sometimes for a treat and are developing a worrying affinity for Moet & Chandon.


Most days on the way to work, Mr Segway (as I like to call him) crosses the main road at the same time as me. He's usually crossing at exactly the same time each day. This is the only Segway I've seen in Korea. He seems to like it when people look at him and ask him questions about his device while he's waiting for the lights.

These days I work in the office at our company's headquarters in Dongnae. That's my seat right there in the middle. Next to me is Brandon Na, the human resources director and in this photo he's interviewing someone via Skype. My work duties include interviewing new teachers from overseas, guiding them in and general HR related troubleshooting. I also look after the April English program to some degree.

Here's the CEO's office. We only moved in here a couple of month's ago.

And here's our dear Kelly Park, who left the company last week for greener pastures. She's been working for us since the beginning and would often be found running around to the different branches or the immigration department. She was really good at fixing problems and watering plants. A few weeks before she left, she found a snail on her lettuce and brought it into the office in a plastic cup. Then the cleaning lady threw it away because she thought it was rubbish. Oh well.

The snail had eggs though, which we kept in a different cup. Hopefully they'll hatch sometime soon.

That's all for this time. See you!

10th GOAL Anniversary in Seoul

GOA'L is a non-government organisation based in Seoul that helps Korean adoptees who return to Korea. They'll help you out with everything from general living advice to finding you a job.

I've been involved with the organisation since arriving in 2006, but living in Busan has meant that I haven't attended as many of their events. I decided to go up to Seoul for their 10th anniversary celebration. As always, the KTX ride up was enjoyable. I'm still impressed with how green the Korean countryside is all year round.

The venue was the Olympic Parktel, which was financed by Koreans who were living in Japan at the time of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Next to the hotel is Olympic Park, which was set aside by the government. There are a few large stadiums inside and a lot of walking trails. I can remember being in Australia during the Olympics in Seoul, and at the time I didn't really understand the milestone it represented for the country. Busan City is bidding for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

I wonder if I'll still be in Korea then?

The rooms were cosy enough. One gripe I have though, is that they didn't replace my little mini-bottles of shampoo in the bathroom as I used them. I wrote that on their feedback form, so let's hope that they've learned the error of their ways.

This is a view of Olympic Park from my hotel window. Korea doesn't really have any botanic gardens, so this is probably the next best thing.

The opening ceremony was in the grand ballroom. Every year there are new faces in the community.

There were adoptees from all over the world including countries like Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the USA, Australia and the Netherlands. They're just the ones I can think of from the top of my head. I'm camouflaged in the middle there somewhere.

The wonderful food, which has become a staple of such gatherings. It's always a buffet with lots of different options. I've started getting into the habit of stopping short of becoming extremely full. This is partly because I heard a documentary on NPR, saying that if you overeat at buffets to save money, you're actually costing yourself extra in the long run. That's because you don't digest any of the food efficiently enough, and the medical costs associated with overeating will aggregate over time.

The other reason I stopped overeating is because then I have more room for beer.

Some old friends and some newer ones. In the last picture on the left is Eric, who some of you may remember from the old days in Koroot. Eric and I have quite different backgrounds but we get along well. I like his combination of not caring and being nice at the same time.

This is Kevin Shea, an adoptee who is a rising star in stand-up comedy in the US. He was in a Mcdonald's TV advertisement here and has worked alongside actors from MadTV. Kevin gave us a 30 minute stand-up show, but unfortunately the subtleties of some of his jokes were not well-understood by the rather culturally diverse audience he had.

Another part of the entertainment that night was this girl, who is an American adoptee and celebrity B-girl. She travels with a Korean B-boy team and performs internationally.

The events for the weekend included a photographic exhibition by adoptee artists and various workshops.

Tammy Chu, an American adoptee, is in the process of making a documentary about a reunion of mother and son. We saw a preview of it and had a question and answer session. It's looking very professional at the moment, and will be showing at next year's Pusan International Film Festival.

Dae-won Wenger is the Secretary General of GOA'L and a prominent figure in the adoptee community. He speaks around 5 different languages and has all the hallmarks of someone who could oversee such an organisation. The first hallmark being patience. In these photos he was trying to explain the location of the next venue to Eric, who is sometimes a little slower than your average audience, especially after lots of free wine.

The next venue was Club Air, which we booked out for the first part of the night.

Around this time last year I was in exactly the same spot and took a very similar set of photos for the blog. How's that for nostalgia?

Suddenly a few of the boys had their shirts pulled off. This was part of an amazing idea that was thought up by a particular French adoptee, who we'll refer to by the code name of 'Erix'. Erix soon had my shirt off too, which would have been a humbling experience if I hadn't had so many drinks.

And I also had a photo taken with Kevin Shea. Now if Kevin gets really famous, I have proof that we met. Or maybe if I get really famous, the reverse will be true.

Ha.

This is Nick Leschly, a poker playing adoptee whose birthday it was. Nick organises fundraising events for GOA'L and says friendly things when he's tipsy.

Here's a video of Robyn Shultz attempting to complete a challenge. The challenge is to eat six crackers in sixty seconds and then whistle. Apparently it's a lot more difficult than it sounds.

Here's the aftermath of the whistle. Morgan was actually sitting on the chair at the time.

While I was in Seoul, I had also arranged to visit my new professor at Seoul National University. This was my first time to the campus, which was a lot larger than I had thought.

Here's the front of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, where I'll be doing my PhD. The venue is nice enough, but it was the professor who impressed me most. He has a very well rounded personality and is the kind of person you want as a supervisor. My PhD will be in agricultural biotechnology and for my project I'll be working on a specific rice pathogen.

This is the 'Sha' gate, which is the iconic entrance to Seoul National University. I'll be starting a new chapter of my life here in the first week of January 2009 and have mixed feelings about it all. Busan is a great city and I love my current job, but I also have unfinished business in the biotech field and this is an opportunity I shouldn't really ignore. I'm pretty lucky to have been given the luxury of choice between two fulfilling career paths.

Anyway, that's all for me this time. See you soon!

2007 IKAA Gathering Part 2

The next gathering is going to be in Vegas in January. Due to the intensive period at work during that time I doubt I'll be able to get time off. But that's not going to stop me trying. Ha.

This is the 3 storey high banner that was attached to the wall of the Sofitel throughout our stay. It looked really pretty, but I always wonder what they do with the material after such an event. I reckon it would be good to cut up and make into t-shirts for everybody.

Here are 5 of the 6 Australians in the lobby of the hotel. Another one, Stephanie, was with us at the beginning but had to leave early. I'm in my typical photo posture as usual.

I'd never actually been to a horse race before so I took the opportunity when it arose. On the last Sunday arrangements were made to head down to the racepark as a group, but most people were tired. Only 6 of us ended up making the trek down to the track but it was a good time.

I know very little about horse racing in general, other than that it's an excuse to flog a helpless animal towards a finish line. But that didn't stop me wagering a bet. I picked the best looking horse, which ended up losing. Then I picked the ugliest looking one and that lost as well. Evidently beauty or a lack thereof is not a factor in racing. After that I went back to the hotel.

Here we are in Club Air, a place that ended up getting so full of adoptees that the locals ended up leaving and we had it to ourselves. I took this photo early on in the night. I guess some people are just very happy to have their photo taken.

A view from the VIP area looking down on the dancefloor. Pretty much everyone you can see is a friend of a friend. The level of adoptee networking promoted by the various organizations has been very successful.

My fellow panelist Robyn, with Dae-won having a good time. I left the place pretty late, and they were still dancing it up.

The closing ceremony was held in the Shilla Hotel, probably the most classy venue in Seoul. We dressed up nicely and were pleasantly surprised by the err... classiness of the place.

We all took our seats and heard speeches. The vice-president of Samsung, Kwang Sup-Han, was eating with us and footed the bill. At our table we took a few guesses at the price and generally agreed that it would run into the high tens of thousands. It was a very impressive setup.

The service was amazing. Wine was unlimited and all the plates were warm at the right time. Most impressively, they had a workforce of about 50 waiters who would stream out quickly and quietly carrying all the dishes at the right time, so nobody was left waiting for their food. Here's one of the waiters that was looking after our table. They came out so quickly they looked like a swarm of bees.

This was the appetizer. It was a seafood salad with wine dressing, but the prawns were some special kind of super tasty prawn that I'd never eaten before. This came after soup and was followed by steak and dessert. Man it was good.

Pia, Steve, Gennai and me. I hadn't worn a tie in so long I'd forgotten how to make the knot.

Some of the old characters from Koroot, the lodging house I stayed in last year. I still can't believe it's been a year already. Then again it seems like ages since I left Australia.

More happy faces. I have no idea when I'll meet up with these people again. Probably at some gathering way in the distant future.

The microphone host for the night was Ahn Jung-hyun, a television personality on Korean TV. She's a managing director of a media firm and hosts a talk show that I watch sometimes. So this was my small brush with fame.


Here's a video of one of the entertainment acts for the night, traditional Korean drummers. There was also other Korean traditional music and a b-boy performance, all of which were top quality.

The entertainment was interactive too, with the audience invited to play small drums that were handed out to everyone. In this photo we're singing 'Arirang' together, a traditional Korean folk song. Photo: Courtesy of Her Royal Loveliness, Pia Claire Meehan.

For the final night in Seoul, we had a club booked out for a while. Club circle is one of the more prominent and upmarket watering holes available. This is their animated LED front door sign, a couple of stories tall.

The interior design was original and aesthetically pleasing. White couches lined the outside, with a lot of mingling areas and televisions everywhere. On the couches were monitors displaying slideshows from other events.

In the middle of Club Circle is the bar area which is a large circle, would you believe. But the coolest thing about it is that the whole outer rim, with tables and all, rotates slowly like a revolving restaurant. So if you sit there, you eventually get to see the whole place from the comfort of your couch.

Later that night Mayda came back and gave us another performance. She's a very friendly and down to earth person. I bought one of her CDs afterwards, but it got lost somewhere in the blurry haze that was the rest of the night.

The drinks were a little bit pricey, as could be expected. We all pitched in at our table and those three bottles of JW set us back a mere KW600,000. But it was the last night, after all. Go hard and go home, as we used to say back in Australia.

The dress code of the event was all white, to match with the decor of the interior. Halfway through the night one of my very good friends in Korea and an organiser of the gathering, Tae-yang, showed up. He was wearing one of the bedsheets from the hotel, wrapped up into a toga. Awesome.



In the photos above are some old friends I caught up with and some friends I have since made. All good people.
The night was a perfect way to wrap up the gathering and I ended up meandering back to my apartment with a glow and a belly full of imported spirits.

The next day I woke up, checked out and took the KTX train back to good ol' Busan. At Seoul station I found a diner selling this hangover soup, which I promptly ordered. It had some sort of brown jelly stuff in it and tasted alright. On the day I arrived back, I had to teach that afternoon and it went pretty well.

Well that was the gathering! If you're adopted and thinking of coming back to Korea, I would highly recommend it. A shout-out to all the people who have. And if you're not adopted and thinking of coming to Korea, I would recommend it anyway.