Korean High School Girls

Someone on Yahoo Answers asked “How does a typical average 17 year old korean girl look like?” I looked at the answers and thought it would be an interesting question to answer.

A Korean girl of 17 is in her first year in hight school. Their American counterparts go to high school at 15 or 16, as far as I understand, but this does not mean Koreans go to high school at a later age. It just has to do with the way Koreans calculate their ages.

Most girl in school wear straight bangs, something many of them will drop once they leave school. Their hair rarely goes shorter than bob and is often tied in to a pony tail in the middle of the head. Since they are Korean they will have the Eastern Asian eye shape and skin colour, small noses, small mouths and heads that appear larger than that of Westerners, dark hair and dark eyes.

All these things are very superficial though, and unless you live here you will not be to tell Koreans from other Easter Asians. Even Koreans can't always tell, but like every country in the world, each person mostly just looks like themselves.

Clothes are much easier describe. School students in Korea often wear their uniforms all day every day. Depending on the high school a girl’s skirt can be anywhere from just above her knees her knees up to a mini a mini. Current fashion is to get it as short and as tight as the school will allow, and some schools will allow pretty much anything. Right now it is summer so she likely will be wearing a white t-shirts to cover everything that is exposed by the silly, to small uniform shirts that they have to wear here. The shirt will likely be completely unbuttoned and flapping open because of the heat. Shoes will be either the standard school saddles of the three stripe flip-flip like, or the current retro style seekers. Many still wear Converse

A great many students here wear spectacles with thickish dark frames in a rectangle shape. I suppose it is just fashion, but I think it suites them well.

Although there are very many absolutely beautiful Korean women, from elementary school through to middle age, do not think for a moment that the typical Korean girl looks like the models, actors and singers you see in photos everywhere. With the help of surgery, a great many of them look nothing like they did in school.

I happened to have taken photos of my middle schoolers leaving school two days ago and noticed this photo. The girls in this photo will go to hight school next year. They will be on he prudish side of the scale, but they will illustrate the look nicely. THe boy in the second photo is wearing the typical specs I mentioned earlier.

Was it always this corny?

As always, the high bandwidth internet here in Korea allows me to rediscover all kinds of old TV programs, like this one...

Coffee in a jiffy

On Saturday I was in the mood for a cup of coffee. Nothing special, just a normal drip coffee. No Cappuccino. No Latte. Not even an Americano.

“But,” you might say, “an Americano IS a normal cup of coffee.” Not so, my halfwit friend. Many people think the Americano means American, but Americano and American is not the same thing. A “normal” cup of coffee, as we in English speaking countries tend to think of it, comes from a pot and is brewed by dripping water through the coffee grind. Americano, on the other hand, is an Espresso toped up with hot water.

“So,” you say, “why should I worry about that?” Normal coffee is made from light or medium-roasted beans. Espresso, and by extension Americano, is made from dark-roasted beans. Darker roasts produce that very strong, quite bitter taste, while the lighter the roasts give the less bitter, more mild tastes. Lighter roasts also have the more distinctive the taste of the particular bean.

Back to Saturday. You see, it is not easy to find a brewed pot of coffee in Korea. Not one Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, or anywhere in between, had a pot on hand. The solution is to turn in to any one of your general 24-hour shops.

Just enter your local By The Way and head on over to the microwave and boiler. Next to them you should see a selection of coffees and hot chocolates nicely displayed and wrapped in take-out cups. Many, if not all of these coffees will come with an individual tea bag of grind, a packet of sugar and stir stick and that right there, my friends, is not that far of from a normal brewed cup of coffee. Best of all, one of these gems rarely costs you more than a single little Cheon Won.

Go ahead. Run to the GS24 and get us a couple. I’ll wait for you.

A title, erm, escapes me?

I am not able to give the photo a title, or to do it justice with a nice description. All I can say is that they were walking just in front of me in Hannam. I wish I had a chance to be in front of them with a zoom lens.

SeoulPodasting

The SeoulPodcast recorded it’s 100th episode, live, at Roofers in Itaewon. It was interesting, strange, and a bit groupie-geeky.

Ginko Drops

Today, Saturday, was a relatively busy day for me. I was “roped in” to be a judge at the English Speech Contest at my school. Not strange, but it is Saturday and I am under no obligation to work on Saturdays. I had nothing happening this morning, so I didn’t mind helping. I wonder why the school is so afraid of asking me to help on weekends. Just don’t make a habit of doing it the day before, because I am not going to change two week old plans to help put, you know what I mean?

Just before I left the house for school, I noticed these nice little drops on the Ginko tress outside my balcony. I had to try and photograph the drops. The results were not what I had hoped for, but it is still OK. Hopefully I will get another chance soon.

Back Side Sunset

With summer here there are changes in the sunset for this part of the world. Conveniently, the sun sets in a more visible position, but more importantly, it sets much later and with the summer cloud cover. These things translate in to me seeing spectacular views from the top floor of my apartment building.

This particular sunset is nothing special, but during the coming months I hope to get at least one shots shot to do those sunsets justice.

Korea Legend and all that.

Upon opening my closet this morning, I discovered that I didn’t have a single clean shirt to wear to work today. Out of eight possible shirts, eight were at the cleaners. How on earth did this happen?

I would love to transcribe the mental gymnastics I had to perform to explain to myself how I could be so stupid, but I firmly believe the solution is much more interesting.

Last year, at the North Korea vs.. South Korea match I bought a red “KOREA LEGEND. begin to 2010.” t –shirt, the same shirt that you can now get at E-Mart. It was clean and ready to wear, so my reasoning went something like this…

The ESPN podcast I am listening to right now says the World Cup starts on Friday…

World Cup on Friday, hmmm…

I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR!

So they think Korea will do OK?

Oh, MAN!

I will just have to wear a gold shirt today…

World Cup…red shirt…clean…World Cup…reasonable excuse…maybe…NO SHIRTS…

…

“Yes, I know the World Cup starts on Friday and that Korea plays on Saturday. Why do you think I decided to come to school wearing this shirt today?”

Dongbu Express’ (동부익스프레스) Dangers?

I was sitting on my bus in the terminal, bound for Seoul, waiting for the driver to arrive and noticed this on the bus next to us. I don’t know about you, but with summer here and the rainy season just around the corner, I don’t not like seeing tires as smooth as those on the busses I am suppose to use.

Looking at the other tires it does not look like this is normal, but still, someone should maybe tell them that lives are at stake? I tried to find an email address for Dongbu Express (동부익스프레스), but amazingly they don’t have one on their website. Not kosher at all.

Pollen Everywhere

If there was any doubt that the spring and early summer air is saturated with pollen then this should clear things up.

A few days back we had very light rain. Light rain does not wash everything away in one fell swoop, and it allows you to see just how much pollen is on the surface of all the things around you. Here you will see the yellow in the edges of the water as it is washed away in to the gutter system. Apologies for not getting closer to the ground. The lens on my 30mm is not macro and thus need to be at least arms length from the subject being photographed.

Another way to see the pollen is to just swipe your finger over something that has been standing outside for a day or so and you will notice the yellow line on your finder.

갈치조림

I took a friend to Namdaemun to get his lens fixed. We arrived just before lunch and thought we might as well get something to eat in the market. The “two” options were the tried and tested Waegoog favourites, or go see what is hiding in one of the dark side alley.

One thing that I have learned it that side allays hide some amazing food and we were hoping for the same. As you can see we are not the only people with following these ideas. We picked an alley and looked for the restaurant with the longest line. “No idea what they are selling, but there is a line of locals, so it must be good.”

The setup here in interesting. They sell ONE dish and that is it cooking right there, in the open kitchen on the opposite side of the alley from the actual restaurant. Not very hygienic looking, but then, what kitchen rally is? The dish is called 갈치조림 (Two links as explanations)

This is the same women who does the cooking, or at least the monitoring of the stuff on the stove. She also serves the food. Here she is going up the stairs, balancing the food on her head, passing patrons and even positioning shoes as needed. Photos of the shoes next.

If you look closely you will see the 1.5th floor just to her left. You have to crouch to walk in there, but who cares if you sit the whole time?

The shoes, perfectly positioned by the women carrying the food on her head and dodging patrons.

And there we have it, 갈치조림.

 

*Images linked to flicker where larger versions are available.

This Miserable Place

Twice within a short period of time I found myself defending Korea. Now that calls for a shot of soju!

We are two regular Waegoogs at my Hapkido gym and both of us have been in the country for a while. We’ve not hit the 10 years mark yet, we are not newbies any more. Both of us don’t really like our own countries and both of us can moan like old men about Korea and Koreans, and both of us really like Korea. It is for these reasons that no one should take our moaning seriously. When it comes to the push I’m sure Travis will defend Korea just as much as I would.

A week or so back I met a guy new to Korea. He’s very green and moans about the silliest thing, those things that become insignificant by the time you hit the one year mark. (Go back on this blog and see what stupid things I complained about.) I also met a guy this weekend that has been here for almost a year now and really does not like the country. I’m sure it’s mostly because he doesn’t get along with the people he works with, but still, he is not exactly positive about Korea.

These two men are not really that strange, but what I did find strange was how readily I defended “this miserable place”. Korea grows on you. The longer you stay and the more you understand why the people do what they do, the easier it is to love the country. Basically what I’m saying is, don’t crap on the whole country, and this goes for anywhere else, until you have tried to figure out what is really happening, and don’t blame the whole country because you picked the short stick and ended up with the bible bashing, “Dokdo” promoting, kimchi worshiping fool that makes all other Koreans look bad.

Shove and Push

When you open a guidebook to Korea, one of the first things you will read is that Koreans don’t like to show emotion or that Koreans are reserved. Not so!

Koreas are some of the most hot-headed people I have ever seen, especially when you observe the older people. Sure, Koreans have a relatively high tolerance for many things, as anyone would have living in one of the most highly populated countries in the world, but generally they have no problem showing their emotions. You must be blind not to see when they are happy, sad, upset, angry, or whatever emotion is worn on their sleeve at the time.

Why am I brining this up? Well, today was the opening ceremony for the Icheon Ceramic Festival. Somehow there were two altercations with men in suits pushing each other around. This is an opening ceremony, not Korean parliament. I have no idea what the fights were about, but since there were press cameras capturing every shove, I’m expecting a little something to appear in the news. I’m asking my contacts to have a look see if they can find out what happened.

Other than those incidents, the ceramic festival is basically the same things as last year, except for everything being toned down. This is because of the navy ship that was sunk a few weeks back. Apparently the “mourning session” will be held sometime soon, so that the whole country can feel the pain.

In a way I admire Koreans for feeling the pain of something like losing a navy ship to a possible attack so strongly. It is a sense of unity and loss to the whole. On the other hand I’m also thinking that people need to get on with it. Oh well, Koreans be Koreans and I be my inconsiderate “die if you want” self.

Uniform Cuteness

Here in Korea the Pre-School students, not the middle school or high school student, wear the best uniforms.

This little guy was waiting for the bus at our apartment complex. Love the shorts and socks/stockings/hose.

Korean Auto Shows and the men who “Love Cars”

The “Seoul” Auto Show was this past weekend. I say “Seoul” because it was actually held at KINTEX in Goyang, 45 minutes or so on the subway out of Seoul. (Why can’t we hold the Seoul Motor Show in Icheon? We are only one hour away by bus.)

Last time I was there with my Super Zoom camera. Super Zoom cameras get that Super because of their small sensors. Small sensors are not good for the light conditions inside a building. This time I was all excited about having the better low light performance of a DSLR’s sensor which translated in to better photos of the glossy cars and edited girls. The only way this could have gotten better was if I had a Canon 5D Mark II or some other amazing camera in hand.

Apart from not having the greatest camera, the biggest problem was that more than half the show was car parts and those travel/caravan/car things. Most of the rest was made up of static racing cars.

I freely admit that I was hoping to get a photo or two of a racing model. These girls make it so easy to photograph them. They actually make an effort to look straight at every camera around them, often striking those special East Asian Cute/Sexy poses. I’m not a professional photographer. I don’t get to take photos with model often. Problem was that I saw a total of four, yes, four models, and they were only released at short bursts.

The first sight I had of these elusive creatures was when I was looking for angles on a single seater racing car. I saw the two girls in the background, not doing much, but hey, the car was interesting enough. While taking the photos, the two girls suddenly walked up to the car and struck their poses. Men…wend…mad!

Men with huge cameras and monster lenses as if by magic. Within seconds they were crowding to get shots of the scantily clad, surgically enhanced, make up covered girls. Sure, I would have likes to take a few photos, but I was not going to fight for a shot of a girl. I’m not that desperate for a model, or a glimpse of a girl. I did get one shot, however, because I accidently found myself in a good position while looking for angles on the car.

Just as I was leaving the hall, I first heard the buss and clicking and then saw men crowding like vultures on a carcass. Apparently the models had been released again.

I decided to provide a link to my Facebook Album instead of posting a bunch of large photos here. If you are having trouble with viewing it, please let me know.

Uri Haggyo?

A elementary scholar on my left spots me, runs and circles behind me, comes up on by right, looks at me, seems very confused and mumbles to herself, of which I only cats “…우리 학교…” (Uri Haggyo). The Foreign Teacher at their school is also male and blond, you see?

What I find strange thought is that she stayed next to me almost all the ay to my apartment, producing confused mumbles.

Hair

What do you get when you let an wind carrying actual icy snow to hair exposed for a few hour?

Taebaek Snow Festival.

 

Cake Cup

I discovered this coffee shop slash bakery a few days ago. The coffee is not the best (still Bliss Coffee), but it is good, and however little the coffee is lacking in taste is made up for by the very low price and the setting.

Cake Cup is a charming little place that bakes and sells mini cakes, cup cakes and biscuits along with the standard hot drinks. I might be spoiled with South African prices, but paying more than R20, about US$2.50, for a single little cup cake seems a bit much for me. Then again, I might also just be ignorant of prices back in the RSA. Soon, however, i will taste one.

What follows is basically just a dump of photos that I took at Cake Cup. If only I had a very wide angle lens to capture the whole place in one shot.

At the Entrance