Rooftop concert

On Friday night a friend of mine let me know about a "Live Fusion concert" on a rooftop. Some good music, instruments I had not seen before, and in different styles than traditional Korean music. We did listen to the music perhaps a little less than we should have though, we were all busy talking. It was a funny small world, where my co-worker's wife recognized the friend who told me about the concert (Will, who I know through a random connection at Berkeley). She was a couple of years behind him at school...

Most of us dressed completely incorrectly, in t-shirts on a night when that was not the good decision. But we drank as much wine to make up for it.

And the coolest thing about the night? They did a drawing at the end of the night and I won a bottle of wine!!!

No word for feedback

We discovered this in Korean class the other night, Feedback is simply said with a Korean accent (peed-bakku). It cracks me up because it definitely implies that this is something you don't do in Korea. Give feedback to others?!?! Of course I say that, and this was right after my feedback session from my first project. But our group is different ;)

You're fired

This is among one of many phrases that we learned in Korean class the other night. There are only two of us, and half of our Korean is spent insulting each other. Needless to say, I think the teacher was a little concerned to start (are they going to use these words to actually insult Koreans?) It does keep it entertaining when we have a little book of all of these phrases and see who can remember what phrase. Did you just call me a ____? Fine, then you are _____! And somewhere in those phrases we actually are learning Korean.

Busy weekend

After the crazy off-site, I spent a good chunk of the weekend visiting different places in Seoul. Saturday was Indiana Jones (meets x-files, not sure how i felt about that, but I am planning on trying to see Iron Man still). Sunday was over 2 hours of basketball, and my body is slowly recovering. Fun to be outside with co-workers and meet a bunch of korean-americans who live over here. We ended the day at the Hard Rock Cafe, which actually has some of the best nachos in town. Then the week started again with a batch of new recruits coming to visit Korea. Busy times but definitely kept me entertained!

3 days of vacation a year

On the heels of the articles about low productivity for Korean workers, they also apparently work the longest hours (there has to be some way to get them up to the 11th largest economy if it isn't productivity, right?)

Check out this article

"South Korea, where the average employee works 2,357 hours per year--that's six-and-a-half hours for every single day of their life. According to a 2008 ranking by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, South Koreans work the longest hours per year, on average, out of every other OECD member."

Talking about people taking on average 3 days of vacation a year. Can you imagine? It has been described that Korea is still a developing country. While perhaps not from an economic perspective, it is only 30-40 years removed from the average per capita income being $80 a year, that's right, $80!

MVP for jet-lag

Friday we had a group outing, an off-site including sharing projects and the afternoon with a bunch of games. I was voted MVP, I think mainly because I came directly from the airport to the bus (the 12:20 am flight from LAX gets you in at 5 am, NOT ideal for functioning and I definitely didn't stay up for the whole day, I lost control of keeping my eyes open by about 6 pm). I definitely wasn't the MVP for the water balloon toss (launching it about 10 feet over the head of my partner (didn't quite know my own strength?) We did have fun with a relay, group jump rope and a human pyramid. In the afternoon we went to a charcoal sauna (one of the rooms must have been about 80 degrees (celsius!)

Trip back to the states

I had a complete whirlwind tour back to the west coast, 3 working days, a majority of it spent at a conference in San Diego (that was a little more technically focused than I would have preferred), but still great to be in the Bay and in San Diego. Got to see Bay to Breakers (and things I didn't want to see in that race), catch up with old colleagues, and did the requisite shopping trip for everything that I can't get in Korea (either because it is too expensive or because they don't have shoe sizes big enough...) That and an iPod Nano for my commute starting next month (when I will be on a bus for 1-2 hours every day).