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seoul photos, now with new and improved context

Friday, Nov 24. 2006 – Category: OpenSolaris, OpenSource, Photos

I finally got around to captioning and describing all my photos from my trip to Seoul for Tech Days from two weeks ago.

the seoul shuffle

Monday, Nov 6. 2006 – Category: Photos, Travel

had a fun day exploring seoul yesterday with my buddy raghu, who coincidentally happened to be out in seoul this very same week.

the day was gorgeous out (thankfully the weather forecast lied and it was completely sunny and warm). i’m a huge war buff, so we headed out to the Seodaemun Prison History Hall to see some exhibits on the Korean independence movement, and to learn a little more about the Korean War. along the way, we saw the requisite bit of engrish, and ended up walking around seoul for the rest of the day asking each other “didn’t you see my panty?”.

we wandered around the Insadong street shopping area, and had lunch at a place famous for its “doughy potato noodles” (they taste amazingly better than they sound), and an oyster pancake (also better than it sounds).

the famous hammering man statue was well… a hammering man. slightly underwhelming, and not worth the 2km walk.

we saw a street vendor with some pokemon puppets that were bouncing up and down to music. it was amazing. raghu and i stared and stared and could not for the life of us figure out how the thing worked. we plunked down 3000 won to buy one and see how it worked. after what seemed like an eternity of watching (though really probably about 10 minutes), we finally saw the tiniest thread of string running horizontally between the two speakers. the pokemon puppets were then attached to the string, which went into the speaker, and i presume were attached to the actual cone. so as the music played, the cone would vibrate, which sent waves through the string… which in turn caused the puppets to bounce.

amazing. and totally better than the hammering man.

stores/malls seem to have parking lots which have these little booths at the exits with cute girls in them. the girls wear a headset and have a huge speaker system, from which they bow and thank every car that leaves the parking lot. wow. i mean… just wow.

we also saw a really cool performance of an electronica/techno classical violinist in a metro station. he was accompanied by a gaggle of hot russian girls. go figure.

in the evening around dusk, we headed to seoul tower where we got some incredible 360° views of the city in the evening. we took the fun cable car ride up and down. on the way back, we wandered around the Myeong-dong subway station area trying to find this specific restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet that serves samgyetang (korean ginseng chicken soup). it was mentioned as being on the second floor, with no korean or english sign - but only chinese lettering. i can’t even begin to tell you how impossible it was to find this place. after 30 minutes of wandering around trying to map an out of scale map against the streets - we actually finally found the place.

the soup was amazing. totally worth the hunt.

backlog of photos

Friday, Mar 17. 2006 – Category: Photos

i finally got around to uploading my backlog of photos…. so without further ado, here are the photos from our trips to phuket, kuala lumpur, and taiwan

my favourites? probably:

i also uploaded photos from last weekend’s ski trip to colorado, though all the photos are from when wendy and lucy went snowmobiling. it’s a good thing i didn’t bring a camera with me when vu and i went boarding - i would have crushed it in one of the many instances i found myself wrapped around a tree.

engagement photos

Monday, Jan 16. 2006 – Category: Photos

wendy and i took engagement photos at a wedding studio here in taipei.

i think they turned out pretty good there are actually a couple of candid moments in there that looked great.

weekend roundup

Thursday, Sep 8. 2005 – Category: Photos

as jesse and dan have noted, we went backpacking in the Sierra’s this past weekend. specifically, we hiked a really cool trail that crossed from the Jennie Lake’s wilderness into King’s Canyon National Park. we basically hiked the trail mentioned here. dan brought out his digital SLR (nikon d100 i think), and we ended up taking tons of photos, including one that looks like i had peanut butter diarrhea.

anyway, it was an awesome hike. about 8 miles in, and 10 miles out (plus a random half mile here and there scrabbling up an incline, and taking a stroll around the lake). we camped at Lost Lake, which is about 1.7 miles past Seville Lake (mentioned in the trail guide above). it was absolutely stunning to pitch a campsite right next to a gorgeous lake on Labor Day weekend and only have one other group camping around the lake.