Episode 38: In Which DFM Sees A Flying DeLorean And Dances On TV For Over 3000 Koreans.

It just so happened that my stay here in Seoul coincided with the 2009 Seoul Motor Show.  MandDFM and I are big fans of motor shows (as regular readers will know) and so he was sure to remind me about this one.  It's not every day you get to see a major International Motor Show, in the second largest urban agglomerate in the World no less.

I had convinced Yoo Sung Bok to come along with me, and he said it was his first time to visit a Motor Show so he was very excited.  Here he tests out an A/C motor for me and later suggested I get one for my new gosiwon since it is always boiling hot in my room.

Sung Bok later admitted that he was really interested in seeing the models and trying to get pictures with them.  It was win-win though, because while I rushed around trying to get the perfect pictures of the cars, I always knew where to find him afterwards (I just had to find the nearest booth with a model).

The best exhibit of the Show by far!  This is a revolutionary new plastic, electric window mechanism and casing that will be on the new Sonata.  A woman working the booth, who spoke quite good English, tried to ask me if I was interested in door technology but I had already responded "YES!!!" before she could finish her question.

Hyundai and KIA dominated this year's Seoul Motor Show.  Together they had about 25% of the display space, and they had the largest number of cars and concept cars (each) of any company there.  It took me over an hour just to explore all of the Hyundai and KIA cars on display.  That's not a complaint, mind you, just an observation.

  

KIA and Hyundai also introduced some very neat concept cars (the first time I've had a chance to see a concept car at a Motor Show) including the World's first LPG-hybrid car (the yellow-green one).  The best part about the Hyundai/KIA hybrid cars is that they don't look like a Prius.

Being a big fan of public transport I was ecstatic to see this Hydrogen Fuel Cell powered city bus,  by who else but Hyundai?  Better yet for Hyundai, the line-up to get in on the other side was longer than the bus.

This is a Korean pick-up truck.  These things are everywhere making deliveries, and they get quite annoying when they try to go down narrow back-alleys full of people (which is often).

These guys, with their giant DSLR cameras and zoom lenses, were everywhere.  They looked ridiculous and kept getting in the way of important amateur bloggers, and I'm pretty sure they weren't professionals either since the media day was last week.

There were a lot of models at the show trying to attract attention to the cars, but only two of them were males.  It's especially fitting though that both male models were working the Audi booth.

  

At least I finally got to see my boyhood dream car in the sheet metal: the Audi S8.

I should say this about the models standing by the cars, though.  Many people will object to their presence at the show for religious, sociological, or any number of other reasons, but they were consummate professionals.

I came here on the second last day of the roughly 10 day long Motor Show, but this model still took time to give me a smile and a thumbs up even though she had been standing there in those high heels all day and must have been absolutely exhausted.

My favourite model was this girl who gave me an exclusive.  That's right, you won't find this shot anywhere else!  Look at how happy she is too, and now some pesky labour law is going to prevent her from having "fun" for ten hours a day, ten days straight.  What a shame.

 

The Seoul Motor Show also featured an Automotive History Museum section with such classics as the Model T, whatever the white car is, and...

A flying DeLorean!  (I haven't seen one of those in... thirty years!)

By this time I had taken over 400 pictures and was starting to run out of battery, not to mention we were starting to get tired.  Sung Bok and I decided to leave because Yi Woojin (Sung Bok's friend) had invited me out to a baseball game and we needed to go get something to eat first.   Sung Bok originally had a date with his girlfriend, but figured that since he and his girlfriend had been in a fight recently that gave him a good reason to skip their date and come to the game instead.

While we were waiting for Woojin to meet us, I introduced Sung Bok to the wonderful world of body weight conditioning drills at the park where we stopped to rest.  Soon though, Woojin showed up and it was off to get some snacks to sneak in to the ball park with us.

I admit that I have not been a big baseball fan since the Blue Jays won the World Series (that's not entirely true, I watched every game during their fall from grace from 1994-1996 before I finally got fed up and quit) .  That being said, watching Korean baseball is an amazing experience and I'm now hooked!

Unlike normal baseball, where the fans are left to decide amongst themselves the best time to cheer, Korean baseball requires fans of one team to sit on one side of the stadium, while an equal number of fans from the visiting team occupy the seats on the other (the furthest trip away is only 3 hours on the KTX, so most of the fans come along to support their team on road games).  Each team has its own cheer leader who is an energetic guy with a whistle that stands on the dugout and whoops the fans up in a frenzy, with a well-timed series of unique cheers that everyone seems to know (I think each team has its own unique set of cheers).  There are also some massive Korean drums that are thumped during the cheers to make even more noise.

I soon ran out of battery, so I was not able to take many pictures at the game, but in this picture you can see the dancers who would come out between innings, our cheer leader (in the white, 08 uniform), and the inflatable plastic whacking sticks we received.

The team I was cheering for was called the Woori Heroes.  The team they were playing against were one of the best in the league, from Incheon.  I was told that one of the fans from the Woori team yelled "Incheon rubbish" after another of their numerous home runs, but this statement was rather ironic since the Woori Heroes were originally located in Incheon.  

The Incheon team clobbered the Woori Heroes, but that didn't matter.  Every time our team went up to bat the Woori faithful would rise up to cheer as loudly as possible.  My favourite cheer was "Home Run, Boo-room-ba!"  We would chant this whenever the DH, Cliff Brumbaugh (the Korean language doesn't always have all of the letter combinations/sounds to make Western names), came up to bat.

Originally Sung Bok, Woojin and I were down low, but beyond third base.  It gave us a great view, but put us away from the main cheering section.  That didn't stop me from dancing and cheering and whacking my sticks along with everyone else though, and soon Woojin said I was in the wrong section - everyone around me was sitting down and silent.

I asked if we could move closer to the main crowd, but I was told I had to go first for it to work.  Apparently if Woojin or Sung Bok went first, they would be told any open seats were already taken, but since I was a foreigner I could just act like I didn't understand and go sit down anyways.  I thought it seemed a bit silly, but I wanted to cheer, so off I went.  With our new seats secured I was able to really get going on my cheering.

I used to be a former professional sports mascot, and so once I got myself dancing and cheering I drew so much attention that my antics earned me 20 seconds on the big screen monitor on the main scoreboard.  Everyone around me recognized me and there were many laughs.  Eventually though I was able to raise the spirits of everyone around me (who, up until this point had been relatively reserved) and soon we were all standing up and cheering.

After the game the president of the Woori fan club came over and he was so impressed with my cheering that he asked me to join his crew.  If I ever come back to Korea I will go to every Korean baseball game I can.  It's probably the best version of something American that the Koreans have modified yet, and I love it.

I enjoyed myself so much at this game that I'm going to another game on the 26th.  Woojin said that the best team in the league were hosting a team from Busan, and that it was sure to be a good match.  More importantly, people from Busan are very intense people, and I was told that they have the best cheering section in the league.  I'll be there sitting in the Busan section on the 26th, losing my voice, come hell or high water.

After the game, Sung Bok marvelled at my energy since I was still going strong and humming the songs and cheers while he was exhausted.  He made a comment on how much benefit my frequent exercising and consequent fitness levels must be for my quality of life.  I have to agree.  (... The More You Know.)

Episode 37: In Which DFM Receives A "Gift" And Gets One Glove

While I had been visiting Suwon last week, James mentioned that he wanted to come to Seoul and do some indoor rock climbing with me.

We met at 11 AM and had some lunch.  We went to a small little "hole in the wall" restaurant and looked at the large menu up high on the wall.  James had turned his chair a bit to see the menu, and this caused his chair to sneak into the aisle a bit.  A man came up and started yelling at him to move his chair out of the aisle.  At first I thought it was all a bit odd, but then I saw he was wearing pajama pants with hiking boots and I realized he was just one of many old, crazy drunk men around Seoul.  The other people in the restaurant were quietly laughing at the whole scene and I could tell they were looking to see how we would respond.  I figured this sort of thing happens all the time with that guy.

Speaking of crazy old guys in Korea, the other day I was on a train and this man came on with a pair of flashy Mizuno running shoes, a bright red Adidas track suit, a US Army canteen on his hip,  and a bright orange baton like you'd see someone at an airport use to guide in planes.  He looked very serious and I thought, "this guy is probably going to start telling everyone to repent of their sins."  As if on cue he starts marching back and forth yelling like a drill sergeant (a drill sergeant with a red track suit on though).  When he left, people on the train were laughing, but then they looked at me, the foreign guy, and started laughing even more.  One man told me that he was a Christian, but I wasn't surprised.  Some of the Christians in Korea take their Bible thumping really seriously.

After lunch, we still had 2 hours until the climbing gym opened up, so James and I went on a trek to find some workout parks.  Along the way James gave me a "gift."  It was a can of silkworm larvae, which are apparently very high in protein.  One can has 40% of your daily protein requirements.

We were in the middle of the city, so we couldn't find a park per se, but we did find an apartment complex that we snuck into.  In the back there was this playground for the local kids, but we used it to do some muscle-ups on the monkey bars, and we also worked on various ways to fly back and forth between the two outside rails.

After an hour at the first apartment complex we walked around and found another place.  This one was more of a public park for children.  We used the chin-up bars to attempt a new stunt of standing on the bar, because they were a little too low for doing muscle-ups.

Finally it was time to go climbing, but I'd be lying if I said we weren't both a bit tired and sore from our workout.  We had the gym pretty much to ourselves, and Ji-Hyeun came over and climbed some hard routes to show us just how much better she was than James and I.  No, that's unfair, I actually called her over to get some "beta" for a route I was trying to climb.

  

I had to go meet my boss, Mr. Kim, for a meeting of all his teachers at 5:30.  I was a bit early, so I stopped to watch these buskers playing in a subway station.  Unlike Canadian buskers, Korean buskers are invited by the city to play in the subway station to increase the cultural benefit of all its travelers.  There is a show every Friday.

The two musicians were really good, but some of the translations were a bit off, because I haven't heard of Bob Dylan's "Knock Heaven's Door" or Johnny Cash's "Rinj of Fire."  However, when one person wasn't playing the other was out in the crowd offering some of his food to me and engaging me in pleasant conversation.  As a tribute, they introduced me to the crowd as being from Canada and one of them played Neil Young's "Heart of Gold."

The "Rinj of Fire" incident reminded me of when I was shopping a few days ago and heard a tune I recognized.  It was unmistakably a Beatles' tune, but the words were in Korean.  Then, the next song on the radio was a Korean version of Biz Markie's classic(?) "Just A Friend."  Only in Korea?

My meeting with my boss was to introduce me to the other teachers he had working at his other schools, and also to go over the lesson plans for the next two weeks.  Most of the instructions/lessons I heard sounded far too difficult for my students to follow, but up until now no one has told me that I need to improve, so I figure that my school is a bit of an anomaly and that I should just continue to do my best.  Oddly enough since there's so many of them here, I've learned that English teachers are quite scarce compared to their demand, so I'm not too worried about being fired either.

After the meeting we were all taken out for food and drink by our boss (there he is in the front row with his fingers in the air).  If you look around you might also recognize Lee, who is now in charge of finding English teachers (that explains how I got the job), and also Thom (not a typo), at the top of the table with the blue T-shirt (Lee's friend from when I got taken out clubbing).

When the pork ribs were brought out, everyone was given a blue glove.  They are essentially those little knit stretchy gloves that we use in Canada for keeping our hands warm, but here in Korea they use them for preparing, and in this case eating food.

I was a bit miffed when my new repair job chipped whilst eating the pork.  I've felt some small chips on the edges recently and today a strip off the bottom came off.  It actually just brings the new tooth into line with the tooth beside it, which is nice, but it does not fill me with a lot of confidence in Korean dentistry.

My disappointment, combined with the fact it was getting late and I needed to wake up early the next morning, gave me the impetus to leave.  But at least now I have a copy of the class materials I'll be using so that I can prepare for my lessons a bit more.

At first I was glad to not have any cock roaches in my new gosiwon, but I guess the management just traded them for large spiders.

Episode 29: In Which DFM Travels To Suwon To Meet A Man He Met On The Internet

In one of my earlier posts (Bar-barians) I mentioned a body-weight training website that had a great forum.  On this forum I met a former Canadian from Newfoundland, James, who has been teaching and living in South Korea for about 8 years now.  We had communicated numerous times, but today was the day we had set to finally meet in person.

I took the 1.5 hour subway to Suwon and met James at the train station.  After exchanging mutual disbelief at how an Internet forum could bring together two people from opposite sides of the planet, we went out for some lunch.

I told James that after my Busan pizza experience I only ate Korean food.  We found a Korean restaurant in the train station and I ordered some beef and octopus bibimpab, which is rice and a bunch of vegetables and egg all mixed together in a really hot stone bowl, plus the beef and octopus of course.

  

After lunch we went to a local workout park and demonstrated some of our pet skills.  James set a new PB today with 10 consecutive muscle-ups.  I made 27 dips - my highest number in about five years - and blistered up my hands quite badly, but I also held my best flag ever and skipped four rungs on the monkey bars.

After our workout James and his family took me out to a local restaurant where we had yet more Korean food.  This meal consisted of chicken slathered in hot sauce, some tteok, kimchi, and all sorts of other vegetables mixed together in a big frying pan at our table.  There were also some hard-boiled swallows eggs and other interesting articles in the side dishes that were delicious.

After the meal James took his kids to a nearby park, but James and I did most of the playing.  We tried to monkey walk up steep slanted poles and jump large gaps between different bars by swinging our legs to gain momentum and then trying to release our first bar and sail through the air to grasp onto the second bar with both hands simultaneously.

After we dropped his wife and kids off back home, James took me to the Suwon fortress where there were miles and miles of 16th century fortress wall on which you could walk.  The wall goes for at least a good 15-20 km, if not more, and wraps all the way around what used to be the city I presume.

Of course, we couldn't miss an opportunity to work out.  There were steep steps we would hop up on only one-leg, and then bear crawl down.  In this picture James is doing a handstand (it's tough to see, but he's in the bottom-right).

After a good 45 minute walk we went back to James' place where we watched videos of experts doing amazing body weight tricks.  James capped it all off by showing me a video of a man doing a one-armed muscle-up.  It is by far the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I was going to head back on the late-night train, but James offered me a room at his place for the night and a ride to the station in the morning.

I even got my own dressing table, so of course I had to accept.

James and his family were great hosts, and I really can't thank them enough.  My trip to Suwon was better than I could have imagined.  Thanks James.