Nothing... nothing... nothing.

As the title says... I did pretty much nothing this week. I did go to Dongdaemun "doota!" mall to get some new jeans and shoes. Got 2 pairs of jeans and a "service" shirt (free shirt) for $110,000 and a pair of shoes for 120,000 with a discount so that was my big weekend.

However it is lunar new year this week and so I have a few days off and I plan to see if I can visit the blue house and take some pictures. Its the Korean equivalent of the white house. That's my plan for the coming week so for this week I have decided to just show you a few random pictures and a small random video of random things that I have seen...

If you look carefully at this picture you can see that this is not a kid but some 70 year old man...!

A couple of Super Cobra attack helicopters.

Chicken delivery :)

New Jeans and shoes.

Random Korea...

Something to keep you occupied.

Arnie Quotes:

And if you could make it through that here is another 130 :)

Costco and how not to leave your apartment.

So if you live in Korea you will know all about or have at least heard something about Costco.

On Saturday I went to the Costco closest to Mangu Station.

The place was perhaps about the same size as Albany Pack n Save in Auckland New Zealand x2 floors and has a lot of bulk food and some electronic and bedding items as well. This is the place to go if you are looking to hibernate for the winter or something like that as everything is basically in bulk! For example you can buy 2 dozen Dr Pepper cans for something like 17,000 won or some Tim Tams for about 13,000 won, Huge jars of Cheese Balls, Insane Pizzas that are the size of satellite dishes and bags of fun size Snickers bars (and others) that you could wear on your back! The best thing though is the meat. You can actually buy large quantities of mince (or hamburger meat for you Americans) but it is only a little cheaper than a Lotte or E Mart but you will get the quantity. You can also buy 6 x Chicken breasts for 17,000 won and so on. They also have a vitamin section and Weilder protein powder at a reasonable price.

Here is some more info and other locations in Korea:

http://www.costco.co.kr/eng/index.htm

Membership costs 35,000 won per year.

How not to leave your apartment apon departure from Korea...

So my neighbour went back to the states early this morning and left me the key to the apartment and of course curiosity got the better of me as I thought maybe there might be something that I could use in my apartment so I...... Arrrrrrhhhhh

That was the exact sound of the landlords who came half a dozen hours later and opened the door. There were all kinds of fantastic things left behind including clothes, underwear, shoes, dozens of books... 3 years of un-cleaned kitchen and bathroom mess and the place had not been vacuumed at all or dusted. However my curiosity was somewhat rewarded by finding 180,000 odd won in coins just left carelessly and a few books on the Korean language that I cleaned with disinfectant!

So I went back to my apartment feeling quite dirty and cleaned and vacuumed and scrubbed and felt better :)

I thought I would leave you with Kai Greene. Probably the most "interesting" body-builder out there at the moment. I wonder if he has a chance at winning the Arnold Classic again this year and placing higher at Mr Olympia??? Who knows...

Just cold and a quick trip to Yongmun

Everything is freezing... I wanted to go to Yongmun this weekend to look at the famous tree and temple... but... it was just too cold. At -12 (and according to the weather forcast feeling like -19) I made it to Yongmun itself then decided that maybe in a couple of months I will go up in the mountains or maybe later when its a little warmer!

I did take a few pictures and this entry will be a random photo dump as well as a subway trip video to show you how lovely winter here is... or just how freezing it is as you will see the river frozen :/

Last week I mentioned a field trip. It was to a local indoor playground which was very cool since there was a trampoline, slides, a mini flying fox and some big yoga balls you could kick around. We stayed there all morning and had great fun.

I bought myself a hot racing pink vacuum cleaner today... not such a clear picture but its a vacuum cleaner it doesn't need a fashion shoot...

Painted up Hermit crabs:

Choppers:

Coldness:

A dog in a cage... I didn't get a picture of the dog on the chain that rushed me while I was taking this picture...

Something is wrong with this picture.... I can't think what it is though :/

Well I have had a pretty good week this week. Settling in to my new place and getting back into a routine or as much of one as I can.

Better leave you with a video you can move your feet to before you get frostbite :)

Hwaseong Fortress - Suwon

So this week has been about settling in to the new place and school, fixing things up and thinking about what I need to buy to make things easier.

First thing this weekend was to fix the bathroom sink. Now again this amazes me how it could be left for such a long period of time like it was... turning on the tap meant that your feet got wet... yep the pipe thread was stripped and so the s bend was useless. Luckily the Director was impressed enough by my ability to fix the door handle that he bought me an S bend pipe. So now the sink works as it should.

I decided to brave the cold this weekend and head down to Suwon (which is about a 2 hour subway journey from where I live) to have a look at the Hwaseong Fortress (or most of it).

The sky was perfect ice blue and so were my hands after about 5 minutes! But I managed to take some photos for you to see. Check out the Flickr slideshow after this selection of pictures:

(Not really relevant to the fortress but I thought it was cool)...

Check out the rest of the photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58055258@N02/sets/72157625657075171/show

So I guess I should put a link here so if you want to go and check it out you can:

http://discoveringkorea.com/2009/01/19/hwaseong-fortress/

This will give you directions from Suwon Station. You can walk there but many of the buses pass by for example the 3000 (red bus) 66, 11, 66-4 and many more. It seems like Suwon is also "bus city"...

Here is the official site as well:

http://ehs.suwon.ne.kr/

Well that's me for another week. I am going on a school field trip this week... I have no idea where or why but it should be an excuse to take some photos I hope :)

Have a sniff of this before you go :)

Watching WWE in Korea?.... Here are the TV listings:

http://www.wwe.com/schedules/television/rw/country/South%20Korea

Coex Hotel Live Restaurant, Sea La La, New Apart.

M.I.A. for one day....

Its the winter holidays here so I have had a 4 day weekend but I also had to move so I have been rather busy and couldn't post last night. However I have a few things for you this week.

Well firstly it snowed quite properly this week. I am not sure how many inches but everything was covered and there is still ice and snow everywhere.

You may remember a similar picture a week or so ago...

Intercontinental Seoul Coex Hotel

Restaurant: Asian Live

Menu choices: Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Indian

Menu Choice: Indian

Well I am not even going to bother you with any of the details of this meal as to say it was rubbish would be an understatement. The menu set consists of about 5 entrées and a main which I chose to be Butter Chicken as this is my yard stick to determine how good the Indian chef really is. Well... I have never had seafood in an Indian restaurant before and never a battered onion either. Glorified sausage rolls topped off with cold potato and some kind of sickly jellylike sauce was totally off putting. To bring the meal to a close was a "fusion" Butter Chicken which was not so much curry as it was spicy. Now talking to the chef he indicated that the dishes were modified to the local pallet. I find this hard to believe as my Korean friend described almost everything as "DISGUSTING" and had her main swapped to black bean sauce and noodles which was also a let down. The naan bread was undercooked and doughy and even though I was brought some desert after refusing it I didn't have the faith to even try the fruit as I was sure it would be a putrefied mess.

We received a discount as you would expect in these circumstances considering the menu price was 160,000!

My advice to the restaurant... if you are going Indian have an authentic Indian menu none of this fusion rubbish which no one finds appealing!

out of 5 stars I would give this restaurant a rating of -15 for its Indian menu. Your money would be better spent at McDonalds.

http://www.seoul.intercontinental.com/eng/coex/reb/reb_asian.asp

Goodbye old apartment hello new apartment.

So yes I did find another job which I start tomorrow not too far from where I was before so all is happy and good at the moment.

However... The inside of the front door had its door handle missing. I was told by the previous teacher that if it slams or you close it tight there is no way out of the apartment except through the window. I gathered he had put up with that for a year or more. It happened to me once and then I was off to E mart!

Putting up with that for a year was beyond my comprehension as for 14,000 won and a set of screwdrivers for 5,000 won I now have a second lock and a workable door handle.

So I mentioned to my friend last week about finding a place like Waiwera hot pools in Auckland New Zealand and she came up with Sea La La.

Mullae Station Line 2 is where you go but here is the website and detailed map:

http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=747197

Its fantastic! You have to buy a hair cap though to go swimming in the pools...

Upstairs there are private spa baths which can be rented for 20,000 won. I think there is a time limit of an hour or so.... there is a TV or you can listen to the radio and sit back and let the bubbles relax you...

I had a request for the Dongdaemun pet market... Now I have an idea where it is but I am not certain on the details. So here is a general map and in a few weeks I will be back there so I may be able to be a little more precise... Well here goes:

Last up.... K-pop charts vs J-pop charts... Enjoy:

Well until next time...