Matching pink pants

So it was always entertaining to see couples in Korea who wore matching t-shirts. But i saw a couple wearing matching pink sweatpants this time. (and yes, i got a picture to remember it by). The other entertaining element was to show the "blimp" that is at the entrance of the airport to my two colleagues in the taxi. The driver said, "it is always the men who laugh at that" Yes, you can imagine what it looks like. The Samsung hand would have looked a lot better than this piece of "art"

Illiterate taxi driver

Something I could only laugh about in hindsight...An illiterate taxi driver on my last night in Korea. After I get in the cab, he peppers me with questions (I am presuming he asks me which highway to take). Finally i give him the card to call the hotel. He proceeds to input a few things into the GPS, but never gets to the final screen. All along the way he is driving, then calling the hotel, and then driving again...We took one of the more circuitous routes through Suwon, and I getting more frustrated, but needless to say my Korean was never that good even when I lived there. Finally we end up on the highway, i know we haven't gone the most direct route as i see signs for the airport (on the west side of seoul, i want to be on the east side!) But we end up in Seoul, so I am mildly relieved at least. This was shattered when he goes over the bridge and takes a left. Now i KNOW we are headed in the wrong direction. So I call up the hotel myself. After all, at this point it has been over an hour, it is 9 pm, and I am HUNGRY (never mind tired). A few calls to the hotel, and passing the phone back and forth with him, and the hotel concierge tells me that he thinks the taxi driver is illiterate. He keeps typing in 1-2 letters, looking around, and then canceling out of the menu. (I know i could have figured it out by this point, but the hotel tells him to find some help). After sitting for almost 20 minutes on a side road in a random part of Seoul, listening to the back and forth with the hotel, the concierge finally instructs to the driver to find someone to input Walkerhill into the GPS. The driver gets two girls walking who were passing by to type in the address. And finally we have a full GPS route! Of course it couldn't be that simple, since he took a wrong turn almost immediately and we headed back over the bridge. Sigh...Thankfully one U turn later, we were headed in the right direction, and i was at the hotel only 2 hours after I got in the cab (for what should have been a 40 minute drive). So the crazy thing about the whole experience? I don't think I could have handled it much better even if my Korean had been better. You don't expect someone to have a GPS and not know how to type Korean...I did make sure I did not pay full fare though, even if Samsung was paying for it, no way would I encourage that sort of experience! So the total bill for that 2 hours of driving? Less than $40...Yes, taxis are still cheap in Korea ;)

Back in Korea (again)

Yes, it was time for my 3rd trip to Korea in the last year. Hard to believe that it has been nearly 3 years since I left! Notable changes from my last visit - the Hooters next to my old apartment is gone :( Thankfully my favorite glasses store is still around (although I was not able to fix anything this go-around since he was on vacation - for 3 weeks!) This trip was busy with work, 4 days in Korea, and 2 days on a plane. Managed to watch 4.5 movies on the way out, and 2 on the way back. Cowboys and Aliens, truly as bad as I expected...Ghost Rider 2 was better, which says something... One of my favorite moments in Korea this time. A phrase from one of the folks in Korea for a new post-sales service: Happy Call Service. That might improve loyalty, but it might not be legal ;)

Truth or fiction?

I had not thought about Korea too much in the last 6 months, but it was fascinating to read about this most recent article (written by a NYTimes reporter):

Life has been a roller coaster for Kim Yong-chul since he began talking about Samsung Electronics two and a half years ago. He has been celebrated by some as a whistle-blower, but in a culture that emphasizes workers’ loyalty to their employers, he has also been vilified as a traitor driven by personal grudges.

That was before Mr. Kim’s 474-page exposé, “Think Samsung,” hit stores in February.

The book makes sensational allegations of extensive corruption by Lee Kun-hee, the richest man in South Korea and the chairman of Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest technology company by revenue.

I won't post the whole article, but I do have a favorite quote: "We are seething with anger, but we are not going to sue him and make him a star again," said Kim Jun-shik, Samsung's senior vice president for corporate communications. "When you see a pile of excrement, you avoid it not because you fear it but because it's dirty."

An interesting set of issues. I still get a kick out of the president pardoning him. The president who came from the conglomerate world himself, and who had pardoned his former boss for embezzlement. That said, not that I am too proud of some of our American presidents...What can you do?

American cultural sensitivity

So this moment amazed me (although perhaps it shouldn't have). We were eating at a nice Thai restaurant, and there was a Elephant god statue on a pedestal in the corner. Potentially this could have been purely decorational (although it was likely connected with religious sentiment, given the ethnicity of the wait-staff). Now I mention all of these things because I would expect that there is one thing that it was not: a coat rack. And yet, one of the diners placed her jacket on top the statue. Michelle debated going over and tell her that she would have 5 years of bad luck for doing that (ie she would have done it if i had not dissuaded her). We still had entertainment however when one of waitstaff noticed. She took the jacket to them and asked if it was alright if she brought it downstairs (ie where the coat rack is), and proceeded to bow several times to the statue. Just a "slight" bit of religious significance to the statue...

Old vs New Marketing

It is interesting to read about Audi using the superbowl to promote its new cars. It makes you realize that as much as we have changed, a fundamental human point about simplicity is key. You reach the most consumers through TV, even if you reach many consumers that are not in your target audience. One TV commercial versus multiple tactics customized on different sites to different audiences. Most companies would prefer the easy way, and until we have more people working, then that won't change. Although ironically, targeting might make things cheaper in the end (including the increased headcount of managing that targeting...)

I love this statistic: And in Brandweek, Steve McClellan reports that a Nielsen survey finds 51% of viewers enjoy the Super Bowl more for the ads than the game. Given that the Patriots are gone already, I am likely in the majority!

9 worst cities

This is fantastic. Seoul needs to seriously clean up its image:
(From the Lonely Planet)

Your 9 least favourite cities
1. Detroit, USA – Because of the crime, pollution and crumbling infrastructure.
2. Accra, Ghana – Ugly, chaotic, sprawling and completely indifferent to its waterfront location.
3. Seoul, South Korea – According to one traveller comment, ‘It’s an appallingly repetitive sprawl of freeways and Soviet-style concrete apartment buildings, horribly polluted, with no heart or spirit to it. So oppressively bland that the populace is driven to alcoholism.’
4. Los Angeles, USA – A highly contentious pick, placed here because of its ‘uncontrolled sprawl, pollution, appalling traffic and ugly freeways’, according to one traveller.

(Not sure how I feel about 2 US cities being in the top 4, but they are LA and Detroit...)

Why I hate AT&T

I was on a mission this morning, buy an iphone (yes as trite as that is, I want a smartphone, and michelle is already on AT&T). A quick point, every business has silos, but as a customer, you don't want to see them. I called up from Michelle's phone and they could help me switch her plan (to family), but they could not sell iphones, or do anything with a GoPhone. The phone I wanted was online (and only online), but GoPhone you have to deal with in a store. So three different people who can't resolve anything, who pass me along each time.

This reminds me of when I was not allowed to port my number from AT&T to Cingular (remember when they were separate?) For some reason they said they could only do so many in a month.

So AT&T has a history of poor customer service. HOURS wasted, and i bet not even AT&T's CEO could fix this problem. And you wonder why they are getting killed with attrition. If it wasn't for iPhone, i wonder if they would even be #2 in the market...How do you take a famous brand like AT&T and ruin it with such customer service? Sigh...

Looking at T-Mobile now =)

New sites to keep track of

Wow, this one is definitely interesting reading: http://fmylife.com
Too many stories of relationships gone wrong, dumb moves, etc. I wonder if I have a story to add on there? Likely, but if so, I doubt I would publicly proclaim it on my blog ;)

Too much rain

So over the past few weeks there has been a lot of rain, much more than I would prefer since it makes bike rides unlikely (and I only have a few more weeks that I can ride!) Michelle and I went into NYC to see the play "After Miss Julie" which was an interesting show with Johnny Lee Miller and Siena Miller, definitely made you think, but it was amazing to hear so many people say that they did not like it afterward in the restroom!

We wandered around town after that, including searching for a new winter jacket for me at Century 21, and afterward we looked at a map to see where the Southstreet Seaport was, and Michelle commented that maybe we shouldn't be close to the curb. Good advice, we just needed to take it...An ambulance drove by full speed (no lights on, so TOTALLY unnecessary), and sent up a huge spray of water, soaking my legs, back, and even hitting Michelle's mouth. #$@#%

Then it was dinner with our friend Han from Korea, who was in town interviewing new candidates (insert different word here) for my old group ;) It was great to see him, and have a great meal at Dos Caminos. Love the guac that they make!

59 boxes

Yup, 59 of them arrived on Monday, which meant approximately 2 days of trying to find a way to put everything into a 1 bedroom apartment. For a few things, when I saw how well some of my pens and pencils had been wrapped, I realized that maybe 59 boxes was too much. Somehow it all fits currently, even though the storage unit is packed to the gills. I will say that the move has been one of the most painless moves i could have imagined, but that should be the case if you are paying someone else to do it, right?

Debating closet space

So I remember being worried about how I was going to move back from Korea after having approximately 6 closets there to Michelle and I sharing three now. According to my cousin's husband, this never changes. You can have 12 closets in the house, and the man will have 2 of them, but there will still be a debate if he should have that many...I need to get rid of some stuff I think ;)

Snow in mid-October?!?

What a CRAZY weekend, after a delay on our drive to Boston due to the heat no longer working in Michelle's car, we headed to Boston for about 24 hours. And on the way back, BOY were we happy we had the heat fixed, as we drove in the snow for about 2 hours!

One of the other highlights included going to Kickass Cupcakes (where our wedding cupcakes were, a treat that I never had due to the craziness of the day, and likely the guests REALLY liking them!) The owner was really sweet and offered us any cupcakes we wanted for free!

Finally, we got into the Halloween spirit by carving a pumpkin at my cousin's house, in the shape of a pirate's face. It was crazy, she had a whole "pumpkin carving set" with different sized knives. It came out really cool, and I think Michelle and I need to look into having one down here!

Kilts: the day i lost faith in dry cleaning

So my kilt got a bit of wearing a couple of weekends ago, and i decided maybe i should dry clean it (out of fear of moths that lost me at least one sweater and a jacket). The places in Chatham were going to charge me $15 and then $18.75 for dry cleaning a skirt. After coming from Korea, where EVERYTHING cost $3, I wasn't sitting well with either of these prices, especially after I looked inside the kilt and it is machine washable. Now I like that shirts cost less than $2 to launder and starch, but seriously, the mark-up on the actual dry cleaning is sick (although given that neither places had a grasp on English very well, they knew the fundamentals of business...Just won't be a business I will regularly be going to...) I digress, and happy to launder my kilt at home so i can have plenty more wearings!!

The little things at a wedding

They say that no one knows the things that don't go as planned at a wedding. And that is amazingly true. My favorite moment was the realization as Michelle and I were walking back up the aisle after the ceremony, and I realized I had not told my brother about the music for post-ceremony. Thankfully the bagpiper my dad had gotten decided to start playing then. Whew...

It was an amazing day all told though, with so many friends and family, great weather, and so many cool events. We had a fireworks display that would rival any medium-sized town in the US, my nephew's rap performance, my uncle playing piano, and an armadillo cake thanks to Michelle's co-worker's extraordinary talents!

What happened with the pagoda

Wow is all I can say on this one. For every delay that could have happened. First I lose weeks by trying to negotiate price (nothing doing, not even my soon to be mother-in-law calling!) Then the vendor takes his time actually building it. Then when we finally get it on the ship (a ship we were likely to miss), the ship is delayed leaving China and misses its connection in Korea (of all places, it had to connect through Korea?)

Finally the pagoda is almost there and it is flagged in customs, which means another 2-5 days (unclear how many exactly). It turned out to only be 2 days, but we could not pick it up until Friday, which was 8 days before the wedding. So we were going to have approximately 5 days to build it.

My father and I drive down there (which was an exceedingly long day for him, since the goal was to be there by 9 am). We get there, only to find we don't have the right papers (our shipper's fault), and when we do, we move back to find not one 10 cubic meter box, but 6, and the largest was significantly larger than our pickup truck. Uhmmm....

The guys in the warehouse are helping us call shippers, and we manage to find one that will deliver by the following day. We drive off with the three smallest boxes, and prayed that it would literally arrive the next day.

When we unpacked everything, we discovered not ceramic tiles (which is what we thought we had ordered), but fiberglass. And fiberglass everything. With no instructions of course. So I was out helping my dad and his two workers, including using the sawzall to cut off pieces to make it fit, and the backhoe to lift the heavier pieces up to the roof. It was finished the morning of the wedding.

(and yes, it looks amazing, but WOW what a trip to get it there!)

Adjusting to life back here

It is strange to be back, some things are very easy, thinking about living in suburban NJ perhaps not as much, but in general the pace of life, the things that I am doing, all of that seem so different!

One amusing element. Wedding gifts are slowly coming in, and Michelle is SOOO happy to receive them, it is like Christmas every day here now (and next to impossible to prevent her from opening all of the boxes when they arrive!)

Talk about almost missing a flight

My last two days were supposed to be relaxed, with only 1-2 things to deal with. It turned out to be ANYTHING but. I had lunch with a friend, had to run around to pay bills (before the movers could move things from my apartment). Finally, after not finding a person I was supposed to meet (they were giving me a check for some of my stuff I had sold), I hustled back to my apartment and headed to the airport.

Now I learned something at the airport, or several things, and not many of them were pleasant...The line on Asiana was SUPER long, and being Silver status on United does nothing for you (and they were really rude about it in fact, especially given that Korean Airlines does offer privileged boarding status for Silver members). When I finally got the front of the line, they would not accept my ticket, since my Alien Registration card had expired (I should have asked for a single entry after my previous flight in about 8 days earlier). I had to go to immigration, which had a line, and make it back in the span of about 15 minutes. At a dead sprint across the airport, I managed to get the stamp I needed (and give up my poor registration card), and ran back to the nearest counter. Made it, but just barely...Needless to say I won't be flying Asiana again at any point soon ;)

Busy last Sunday

So I had several things to accomplish on my final weekend, starting with picking up a scroll that was going to be used for the wedding guest book (with the logo that Michelle's cousin drew). It was super cool to go there, he served us really good tea in this elaborate tea ceremony (he had three containers that the tea was transferred between!) The scroll itself was enormous, I have no idea where we will hang it, but all details for later).

Then it was back to the apartment to try and give some stuff to my friend Sunghee (who was the translator for the scroll and tea ceremony (she has been such an invaluable help over the past couple of years!). She walked out of the apartment with everything from a picture to a mammoth bag of toilet paper.

Then the day ended with my last basketball game, and I scored the last bucket, a reverse lay-up. At that point I needed to pull a Kostanza, “thank you, I’m outta here!” What a way to end!!

Bittersweet farewell

It seems so strange to slowly move out, and realize that you have no idea if/when you will see some of these people again. I had an interesting moment though involving a going-away party. This is a poll I would love to ask a bunch of people. I know that in general for Koreans that the most senior person pays for everything, but for many going away parties, I feel like the foreigner pays. I wonder if that is because you are no longer part of the group, or if it is making the most of a situation. But I did appreciate all of the last minute lunches and what people did for me.