bye bye Lille

ReTweet Posted on: April 28th, 2010 1 Comment

For a month, like so many travelers, I have been living on the tempo of a certain volcano. I have been staying in Lille, straying in Paris or Holland for a few days at a time. I have been having picnics on the grass of public gardens, enjoying the first few rays of sunshine with a beer on a terrasse, walking and biking and – still with a teacher by my sides – driving through its cobbled stoned streets.

And you know what? I think it’s a city I can call home. For over a decade now I’ve had a love-hate relationship with its long winter nights and its mostly grey weather. But this is where my friends are. This is where my memories are. The sounds of the subway are familiar like nowhere else, and I could walk through the maze of streets blindfolded. Its brick reds and bright colors, when they catch the first sunrays of the year, make my heart tip like no other city can.

http://www.vimeo.com/3756852

So, goodbye, home. I will be stepping on a train on Thursday, 18:00. Who wants to see me off?

Fresh green

ReTweet Posted on: April 1st, 2010 4 Comments

Spring is clearly well on its way – the city is turning green!

Right now, I am on my way to catch a plane – I’ll spend a couple of weeks in Europe, sorting through the last bits of paperwork that needs to be dealt with, including my final visa run and a driver’s licence exam (and I do hope it will be the last one, too). Wish me luck.

I hear the weather over there is just as… vivifying as it is here. I still hope to glimpse blossoms and ducklings and a couple of sunrays, to say goodbye to home on a sweet background.

See you in a different time zone!

Anguk in the rain

ReTweet Posted on: March 31st, 2010 No Comments

After a nice lunch at Go 5 vegetarian restaurant, I went for a walk around Anguk. Spring is here, and rainfalls too…

Yellow fever

ReTweet Posted on: March 29th, 2010 1 Comment

It’s a topic of conversation that comes back in most groups of Westerners that is at least partly female at some point, and Sunday night was not an exception. What’s the deal with Western dudes dating so easily in Japan or Korea, and the girls having such a hard time scoring anyone? And yet how come it balances off when you look at long term couples?

I don’t really have anything smart to contribute to the discussion, except for this photo essay that deserved a little more than a tweet:

Yellow fever: a history of Asian men dating outside their race. Both historical figures and pop culture characters are looked at. Just don’t read the comments.

Via the Grand Narrative

And just because it will save Wally the trouble of looking it up again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu61YBai_mM

Bikram girl

ReTweet Posted on: March 29th, 2010 5 Comments

Armed with courage and a sports bra, I tried for you Bikram Yoga (also called Hot Yoga). For those of you who have been living under a rock since the 80s, the principle of Bikram Yoga is to perform a series of yoga poses, both standing and sitting, that are relatively classic except for the fact that the studio is preheated at 38°C (hence the name!) and humidified. Yoga in a hammam, to put in simply.

My studio is very close to my office – convenient. The classes are bilingual even though I am the only foreigner at this particular time. When I come in, I exchange my boots for a pair of slippers that I’ll take off in the changing rooms, and receive two fresh towels. I change to minimalist clothing, get into the heated room and choose a mat. The light is dim, the studio smells nicely of hot wood (and not at all of sweat, which is great). Only half the mats are taken so far, with most participants lying on the floor getting used to the heat and the moisture. So far it seems completely bearable, I don’t really get what the fuss is about. I will later.

Since my carreer as a yogi came to an end when I left Japan in 2008, my body is completely rusted – but that’s not actually the problem. Anyone can choose to modify the poses according to their flexibility, and the instructor helps everyone exercise while not getting hurt. The original idea behing yoga is actually neither flexibility nor relaxation, it is to allow the participants to build enough muscle strength and body control to maintain a meditation pose indefinitely. In other words, it is hard physical exercise. And in a tropical atmosphere like this one, I am soaked from head to toe within 15 minutes. My glasses glide on my nose. The class is 90 minutes… hang in there. The first half (standing positions) is the hardest and I need to sit down several times to let my breathing and my heart rate calm down to a reasonable rhythm. And to drink, of course. I was careful to amply hydrate before the class and still put away over a litre of water throughout the session.

While I pant and drip and turn purple,the class’ superstars breeze through and hardly flush as they hold the tree position.

The second half of the session, sitting positions, goes a lot better, and I am just on the verge of my comfort zone. I can choose to push myself a little harder or not. Free to concentrate on flexibility rather than physical effort, I really notice how beneficial the heat is to muscle stretching.

Verdict? I signed up for 4 months. I really enjoyed the session, the class atmosphere, this type of physical exercise, and even if maintaining a pose for a few seconds doesn’t seem like much on paper, I can clearly feel the effects in my thighs even a couple days later! The poses are the same every time, I hope it will not become boring.

Vegan buffet in Mokpo

ReTweet Posted on: March 24th, 2010 5 Comments

I was invited to eat at Log House in Mokpo. This little café/restaurant/organic shop has a nice vegetarian buffet, which was a very welcome break after days of bibimbap-hold-the-egg and plain tofu noodles.

Soba noodles, raw vegetables, sprouted beans, fruit...

Soba noodles are made of buckwheat ; you eat them by soaking a mouthful in a cup of hot broth first (in this case, miso soup). Sprouted beans are not hippy-ish at all here, they are a part of most traditional meals.

On the plate of chopped vegetables, you can spot onion. Plain, raw onion. That came as a surprise the first time I got it served to me (along with a raw clove of garlick!) Am I really expected to chew on raw onion? And then go on to have business meetings? It turns out I am.

Sticky rice cakes filled with red bean paste.

A typical East Asian dessert. Traditionally, red bean paste is as sweet as food gets. Now of course Korean people have imported Western style baked goods, for which they often go completely over the top, with layer upon layer of whipped cream and colored frosting.

Vegan sushi! Maki in the foreground, inarizushi in the background

Inari sushi is a little deep fried pocket of tofu skin, filled with a variety of foods.

Oh, raw greens, how I love you!

Many vegetables are served pickled or marinated in vinegar, red pepper oil or alterated in some way. Plain raw greens may sound boring or bland, but after weeks of pickled, spicy lettuce they are a true relief. You’ll also notice the raw chili peppers in the foreground – goes nicely with your clove of garlic.

Spicy tofu

One of several kinds of kimchi

Little rolls of cuteness

I love the creativity involved in these tiny rolls, and how beautifully they are arranged. When you think of a buffet, decoration isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, and yet the Korean manage to put some beauty in it.

There were plenty more options that I didn’t take pictures of – I left outeverything that had mayonaise or dairy dressing, for one, and didn’t bother with the less photogenic dishes like soups, rices, pumpkin gruel or the very realistic mock-chicken seitan dishes  (they were delicious though) or the mock-sausage in some kind od potato soup (yeah it looked as weird as it sounds, I did not try that one).

I recently joined an online vegetarian group that meets up in Seoul. I hope they’ll be able to introduce me to similar options around here – although the Log House dinner was delicious, it’s just a liiiiittle too far for a night out!

Baths

ReTweet Posted on: March 23rd, 2010 2 Comments

Spas and public baths seem to be as much of an institution here as they are in Japan. According to the LP they’re called onjeon (mirroring the Japanese term « onsen ») but to be honest I’ve never seen this word being used. Instead the Western word « sauna » seems to be the most widespread way of referring to these places.

In Japan I was a big fan of onsen time. I experienced many different settings, atmospheres and price ranges. The major tourist experience in Tokyo. The tiny unattended mountain hut tapping directly into the local sulfur-laden undergroud thermal spring. The huge and gorgeous wooden baths houses in Hakone, after sundown. At the top of a cliff, overlooking a sunset on the sea. Under red leaves and autumn drizzle in Koyot (sitting in an open air hot bath when it’s cold outside is an extremely pleasant sensation, by the way). With a few colleagues, to relax and refresh at the peak of the summer dogs days.

My Korean spas experiences have not yet been so varied, but I did bump into an unexpected situation: apparently Sunday evening is family time at the public bath. The place is busy and noisy, you almost have to fight to get a shower. Everywhere, sisters scrubbing each other, mothers breastfeeding, grandmas chilling in the sauna, friends daring each other to dip all the way into the ice cold tub. All this relaxed, friendly soaping and rubbing is a nice reminder of our ape nature… I’m looking forward to trying the spas on “business outing time”. Can you imagine doing that with your boss, or your cubicle neighbour?

Public bath etiquette:

1.At the door, pay your entrance fee (in Japan I’ve experienced anything between 300 and 2000 yen, or approximately 2 to 15 euros. In Seoul prices oscillate around 6000 won so far – 4 euros). Usually you will receive one or two small rental towels.

2.Take off your shoes before getting into the locker room. Hint: like in most places in Asia, the limit between shoe zone and no shoe zone is indicated by a small step.

3.Take off all your clothes, glasses, jewelry and put them in your locker. Keep a towel with you. Girls who are self conscious sometimes hold their towel unfolded in front of their body, loosely covering their breasts and pubic area. The towel is not any bigger than this, don’t expect to be able to wrap yourself in it. In Japan it was fairly usual to see some women covering themselves this way when walking from lockers to shower, or from bath to bath. In Korea no one seems to bother.

4.Head to the shower area. Grab a seat and a bucket, and sit in front of a faucet to scrub yourself. The bath is for relaxing, not washing, so you should be perfectly clean and rinsed before dipping in. In some very rustic onsens, there is no faucet and shower heads: in this case, sit next to the bath first, and wash by soaping and splashing yourself with bath water (that’s where the bucket is useful).

5.Now try one of the baths. What to do with your towel then? The habit seems to be to put it on your head! Either wrap it around your hair to keep them away from bath water (and to keep sweat from dripping in it too, as it can get quite hot) or soak it in cold water and let it sit on your forehead. You can usually spend as much time there as you want for just the small entrance fee.

6.Once it’s time to leave, there seems to be conflicting opinions about what the use is. I like to shower again before leaving, as the hot, moist atmosphere makes everyone sweaty, and plenty of local onsen users do this too. But some argue that spring water has a positive effect on the skin, that would be cancelled out by soaping up again.

7.If you get tired of the water, there are sometimes various options to pamper yourself some more. In the women’s areas at least, various hydrating lotions, cosmetics and hair products are available. You can get several layers of dead skin scrubbed off by the local staff (not for the meak: these ajumma are violent!) or try massages or suction cups therapy (eek!)

A few last random thoughts: now that I have seen more naked Asian girls than any of my readers probably ever will (if I don’t attract all the creeps of the internet with keywords like these I don’t know what else I can try!) I can say that:

  • Many Asian babies do have a blue patch above their butt. Freaked me out the first time I saw one, as I mistook it for a massive bruise. Apparently it’s there from birth till the child is a few years old.
  • Asian women too come in all shapes and sizes, lean, chubby, bony, curvy.
  • And women of all shapes, of all ages, whether they’ve born children or not, have something beautiful about them. Maybe that’s the art geek in me speaking but I say don’t trust porn standards: all naked bodies are esthetical. People don’t get ugly as they age – they become more fascinating. Not that I am looking or anything. Erm. I’m not wearing my glasses anyway.

This is Gangnam

ReTweet Posted on: March 20th, 2010 2 Comments

Ubiquitous Media Street of Gangnam

Gangnam is one of the main business districts of Seoul. It’s big, it’s bright, it’s loud, it makes you want to look up. It’s hilly and at the highest points, there is so much sky – between the skyscrapers, and reflected in their glass facades.



The weird Irish dude at the hostel explained to me that although Gangnam is quite boring to live in and extremely expensive, it has become hugely popular for young couples and families. Why? Because it’s where the good universities are. And to get in the right university, you must attend the right high school, so you must attend the right primary school, so you must attend the right kindergarten, so you must be born and live in the right neighborhood. Korean yuppies secure their mortgage in Gangnam long before they even start trying to conceive a baby – and that’s just the beginning of the burden that is put on a child and their education. For more on that, I suggest you have a look at this article at Matador Abroad, written from the point of view of an English teacher witnessing daily what kids of all ages go through in the Korean school system.

tall buildings, large horizon

Why my partners were freaked out by the weird blonde girl they took to dinner last night

ReTweet Posted on: March 18th, 2010 4 Comments

She is female, and an engineer.

She is female, and travelling alone to a foreign country. And taking the subway alone, and working alone, and meeting with clients alone, even if she isn’t sure they speak English. Berry brave!

She is female, and drinks beer. And soju. And beer and soju mixed together. (I swear it was their idea – I wouldn’t dream of ruining beer like this.)

And she holds alcohol better than Korean men (oh, the shame!)

She doesn’t eat meat. Or fish. Or even shrimp! And even when they’re chopped up in tiny little pieces so that you can’t really recognize what animal they used to be.

She doesn’t eat meat, but her family does (making a lifestyle choice by oneself? Without prompting or even authorization from your parents? Mind: BLOWN).

She has no religion. (Or so she says, she might as well say she doesn’t have a head. Everyone has a religion!)

She’s not married.

She’s not married even though she has no obvious flaws that would understandably prevent her from scoring a husband. (Seriously, how hard is it to get married?)

Not only is she not married, but her boyfriend is following her to a foreign country.Where she’ll have a job, and he won’t.

Surely she must be making some of that up.

Garak Market

ReTweet Posted on: March 15th, 2010 3 Comments

My office is located right outside the 3rd exit of Garak market subway station, in the Olympic Park district. That’s all the way to the South East, almost at the end of subway lines 3, 5 and 8.

The neighborhood looks fairly modern – square, logical blocks, no little houses with tiled roofs, but also no ugly, massive concrete blocks from the 70s. So far it looks like a pleasant part of the city, although a little far

from the center. It gives a bit of a smaller town vibe – or maybe the vibe of a village inside a major metropolis.

This is Songpa-gu (Garak Market is on the pink subway line)

Across the corner from my building, there is a fresh bakery called « tous les jours ». There is a cocktail bar called Bar in Tahiti. There’s the Lotte mall, temple of fashion (that came as a surprise to me, I knew Lotte from Japan, but from their candy line). There’s another mall, with no fashion but one third investers, one third private clinics (mostly psychiatrists and dentists) and one third sport equipment. There are vegetables shops ran by old people, and hairdressers who do not try to make their salon look like nightclubs. There are dozens of small stalls that serve cheap rice or noodle based food. There’s a public bath (I love those) and a bunch of snooker places. There are lots of appartment buildings with patches of green in front of the entrance, kids in the streets at the end of the school day, fewer suits than in Gangnam, fewer twinkly lights than in Insadong. There’s a whole foods store outside Bangi Station. There are the first bike paths I have seen since arriving in the city, and people actually riding on them!

The avenues in front of the Olumpic Park itself are huge, empty and slightly elevated – lots of visible blue sky above skyscrapers.

I am sitting in a pub – not the English conversation one – sipping on a Korean beer. The girls snacking at the table next to me glance at me but don’t seem to dare talking to me. This place isn’t for English conversation, after all.

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