Finally Conseouled

So I'm lying there naked, whilst this guy, who I'd like to point out, isn't naked, (he's the only guy in the place who is wearing something) pummles my back. I can't say its unpleasant, advertised as a sports massage, it seems to be quite relaxing - the only problem is the plathora of other ugly naked guys wandering around the immediate vacinity.

Welcome to korean hot-tubs (Glenn I get the feeling its like the russian ones without the twigs). It seems I'm doing something quite traditional, but unfortunately everyone else has had 40+ years to get used to this - me, being the typical brit, not from this ilk, do find it a little startling. The rest of the tradition involves jumping from extra cold, to extra extra hot tubs of water, maybe 5 minutes in the sauna (if you can keep your eyes open that long). You certainly feel envigorated. That or about half baked at 180deg. Certainly a different day in the life of IT consultant stuck in a foreign eastern land ....

Well my sentence is over, parole has been granted, hopefully indefinitely. You'll be glad to note that the project finally, but not without drama came to an end. God bless our beloved client and the people of Seoul....

However, you'll realise from my last monologue, that for the lowly westerner korea offers radical insights in the way to live life with some odd and interesting food and customs. But you will be glad to hear that life didn't return to much normality for the remainder of the stay. Oh sure we managed to find restaurants that didn't sell too much pickled cabbage, or didn't just have 'sit on floor' setups (becoming increasingly difficult for my 6ft 2, 20 stone team mate, and me with my bad back)

So what did happen in the remaining 4/5 weeks. Well apart from work, which of course remained key focus to ensure we all managed to actually leave in the time frame. We visited steam baths (see above), walked around remaining old 'city walls' and had more of the same korean bbqs and battling with taxi drivers without maps.

But it was the even simpler things that started to really get to us. Now I did figure out the heating system eventually, well basically I learnt not to turn it on again. But something else lurked in the depths of my service apartment - the phantom toilet. It seems my toilet seat was getting hotter.... After extravagant eating and drinking, I like most english men, like to relax the morning after with the paper (english version of course) in the sanctum that is called the morning bathroom. So one would expect that a nation, obsessed with cleanliness, a bit like the Japanese, would have the ultimate toilets to allow the mornings to start in a sedate and peaceful way - just the place to rest your weary self after lots of depth charges and fried squid. Alas I wish it were so. The first thing you notice about these toilets it that they are not only plumbed into the floor, they are plugged into the wall. Yep they're electric. Initially this is frightening, you hope the engineer and electrician and plumber all spoke the same language. It is also quite mistifying, like everything else in our newly built apartments - no english instructions.

Now if it were video recorder, no big drama, so you miss your tv show, but playing with an electronic panel that looks something like Dr Checkoffs Enterprise control panel would frighten most to find alternative, er, seating arrangements. So initially the team (all staying in the same apartments during the project) would debate and discuss the art of 'toilet control' on the way to work - this button does this, slide this 2 notches and wait for the beep, etc. etc. I stayed clean away from any touching of controls or tweaking of, er, nobs, ... instead using the age old assumption (assumption number 1), that it should all work if you just switch it on. It stayed just switched on. Until, one day, for some uknown reason, the cleaner switched it off. Some instinct told me to switch it on again, but do not fiddle with the controls (age old assumption number 2, if its not broken don't try to fix it). So I obeyed assumptions 1 and 2... until I returned the next day for my regular. Its quite a shock, when you're getting up to air-conditioned 20 degree room temp, to mosey on over to the bathroom and then sit down on something reminiscent of road-side tarmac (asfalt or bichimen) cooked in the afternoon summer sun. Its an even bigger shock to have to go next door to an 'associate' and have to ask to use there toilet, because yours hasn't cooled down yet! Valuable lesson learned - the toilet remained unplugged the rest of the stay.

But basic day to day chores, for the international business consultant, didn't end there. Take expenses, something that is a chore at the end of each month (of course you can be organised and do it every couple of days). But even if you have been organised, and to be honest in korea, even thou dates are in english on the receipt. NOTHING ELSE IS. so you spend hours working out if it was a taxi, the coffee in the morning, your lunch, the dinner, the karakoe bar after dinner and bar... you get the picture. But it doesn't end there, something that has become very rather important in this process is checking monthly statements to make sure you haven't been diddled by the credit card company . But how exactly does korean come out on an English statement - well it goes through 'translation'. Of course, Hangul, is a great language - each character represents a syllable, but it does take a while to figure out the automated translations - take a look: YU)OZIJUNGAW OOTBAEKSTEIKHAWOOS YANGJAE SEO, this is actually the "outback steak house", in Yangjae. (we were bored of korean food that night, what can I say)

The other thing that formed part of business is lunch. This is incredibly important for korean business etiquette, but it can be a bit daunting. Korean food is very social, most of the meals you don't actually have a plate. Help yourself to various bits (usually pickled cabbage) from the numerous bowls covering the table, dipping the bbq meat into sauces, wrapping in leaves and chomping down. Well on this particular meal we were doing chinese - only 2 options presented, noddles with black bean thing and noddles without (as far as I could tell). Anyhow, now visualise 10 people, the most senior in these three companies, all attempting to eat noodles quietly. Except it wasn't. Instead try and envisage the baked bean scene from "Blazing Saddles". The place sounded like a yuppie pig farm, it was all I could do not to choke myself as I realised everyone, bar none, was doing it and with gusto. No point talking, you couldn't over the noise - nope head down and slurp. And by all accounts a successful dinner at that.

So if we weren't eating you were drinking. I recounted stories of karaoke with mad business associates with a tie around his head, bandana style, well there weren't many more of those, but we did hit the odd club or two - and by this i mean dance, not the 'other' sort of club. But we discovered quickly that clubs in korea are a very different kettle of fish. Firstly if you are over 30 you are in trouble, you can't get in - I kid you not - we actually got ID'd to see we weren't all over 30. On getting into the club it was the normal split of 'tabled' area next to dance floor or 'back room'. This time we opted for table, less claustrophobic and easy access to the dance floor. But what we hadn't been told is that the tables are marred by the 'booking system'. Let me explain:

- guys turn up to club (maybe with girls) get allocated table, sit down.

- Any girls turn up to the club, on their own, they are 'listed' with the waiter guys, of which there are many.

- These waiter guys spend the entire night (in between bringing drinks and fruit (the customary side dish if you're not into dried squid, which is actually pretty good)) dragging the 'listed' women between the tables (if the women aren't dancing), where by it goes something like this:

- girl sits down (apparently being dragged against her will)

- if girl really doesn't like to be there she gets up immediately - before anyone else has even attempted conversation

- if girl kind of seems interested she stays until people round the table, usually most bolshy guy, have said more than 2 words

- if girl seems quite keen either to drink (and get something out of it) or really genuinely wants to have a bit of a chat she will then proceed to stay, drink and maybe talk

- if girl is really keen she sits, drinks your bottles almost neat, will eat food and talk keenly about everything and anything, even known to grab a guy back to the seat if he as much as trys to stand up to go to the men's room.

The amazing thing is that at the end of the evening the guys around the table manage (well based on our local friends efforts) to end up with phone numbers of 80% of the women who sit down (well dragged down) at the table. I don't know if it would work, but imagine english clubs, altered from their awkward settings of women on dance floor, guy, at edge of floor not quite moviing / not quite standing still, eyeing up girls. In the korean model, no fussing, drag each women around to each guy and see if they hit it off - would make a lot of guys very happy I'm sure.

The thing is, even if you are not in it (although you can't seem to stop these waiter guys bringing women to you) , its a great spectator sport. Sit down, beer in hand and watch the absolute losers. We spotted one guy who was 0:6 in about 10 minutes. Didn't think it was possible for the girls to arrive that quickly by waiter escort!

Have to admit, when you just want to sip burbons with the guys, some bloke dropping women around every 5 minutes, does get a little annoying...obviously something I'm used during normal clubbing expedition... eh hem, straighten imaginary tie.. so we stuck to the restaurants and bars.

One such place is K63, or is it 62, anyhow, apart from sounding like the name of a star, its actually korea's tallest building. Although seoul has many tall apartment and office buildings, apart from the telecom tower (who doesn't have one of those in a capital) which is atop a central hill, K63 (or 2) sits well above the others. It is on a small island, call 'little manhatten'. All reclaimed land this is becoming a business hub in Seoul, which is rare as most of its all over the place. Anyhow, on top this 63 or 62 storey building is a restaurant, and the views are breathtaking. By night is best, even with the significant hills, seoul sprawls. But unfortunately and almost perversely, the most stunning sight are the traffic jams. There aren't any other 'significant architectural pieces' in seoul, but the fact that the highways follow the edge of the river and are packed with traffic creates rivers in the dark of head and tail lights in incredible patterns - just have to pitty the poor buggers sitting in their tin cans of cars at 10pm!

And so day to day business overtook the flash views and expensive meals, with normal trudge to work via suicidal bus journey each day. But this was lightened up by 'sand people' who enhabit the local areas around Bundang, the business satellite city where we were based. Not sure why I didn't notice these ladies before, it could have been the day after watching the new Stars Wars movie. The local authorities employ people to tend the small areas of flowers and greenery that dot the highways and suburban roads. As summer takes grip of the country's climate, these people, usually women of un-averagely small size, wander round with towels on their heads to protect them from the sun. One, at first glance, may think nothing of this, the arabs have been doing this for ages - you could even say, all their lives, but here its not the 'Arafat' look - try to imagine an entire beach towel wrapped around their head, draping down on all sides. If it wasn't for the lude reds and blues and the fact that all star wars movies now are computer generated, these people could easily be extra's in episode 3!

So as you can imagine, excitment aside, quite keen to be back in Australia right now, if under rather constrained circumstances. Most of you know that during my stay in korea I managed to bugger my back up, which it seems was worsened by my korean chiropractor who couldn't spot the true cause. On return to oz, scans, tests and many visits to physio, doctor and specialist have diagnosed a major disc bulge. Specialist views will be in soon, but its looking like an operaiton with 4+ weeks off to settle it once and for all

Heart and Seoul

Now Koreans are mad, certifial, insane - but only when they're supporting soccer. the rest of the time they're actually quite friendly....if you can understand them. Now it seems after the boys got to the semi finals,1 in 8 koreas took to the streets to celebrate - that's 5m of them. You probably saw on TV, now luckily I wasn't in Seoul that weekend, a bunch of us decided to head out of the city to get away from it. And boy did we. And I'm glad. Apparantly it took hours to just get to the tube let alone get home from city hall. Bizarrely the majority of those people couldn't actually see any one of the big screens set out... I guess it didn't diswade anyone from going.... It was great to go to the SA Spain game, it was an amazing atmosphere, and luckily one ofthe most exciting games of the tournament. Unfortunately the rest of the games have been from the local coverage on cable (approximiately 90% of the local channels!) or in the bars and restaurants which in itself aas been a great experience as the korean's are truely loving this!

I have been here 6/7 weeks (or is it years) now and apart from working what seems to be most hours of the day, most days a week, I can say, with a degree of certainty, that this is one of the weirdest places I've ever been. Now its not from want of trying, as most will know me, I like to give these foreign locations I'm blessed with at least a try, but a few simple things seem to disagree with me. Okay so there is language, culture (which makes the business side of things v. challenging), bad weather, but if you look at the city initially you think its just a rather badly built american city - lots of big wide roads, tall buildings and lots of cars... but of course that's only the first impression.

Lets start with the weather. Now I'm an english bloke, right, so its often something we, as a race, are caught muttering (usually complaining) about, welll here is a slightly different story. There is no point. The smog blocks out the sun, on the rare days when its clear (need wind) you can appreciate being able to see across town (including the telco tower which I swear wasn't there for the first 3 days of my stay). No the real problem are the forecasts. Don't bother. Okay, so there is the language issue, but you need to rely on your fellow seoul inhabitants. It comes down to "rain & umbrellas". For some reason the locals know the weather much better than the fore-casters. So on the occassion where you walk down to the sub-way and you see everyone carrying an umbrella, but the sky is clear (by clear, I'll ellaborate later, clear is a relative term based on the smog level), you can guarantee with much certainty that you'll leave work and it will be poring. And its not like there are a few smart people, but EVERYONE, will have a brolly. Save no-one. Its almost odd, there is no-one not carrying an umbrella. Except one person, the gardner. He has to wear a hat - I mean how else can he tend the plants with a spade and use his mobile at the same time.

Finding places. There are no street numbers in Korea. Well there are, but they are assigned chronologically, based on when each house / building was built on the street. First house on the street equals number 1, 2nd is number 2 etc. This may seem odd, basically yes it is - its bloody absurd, you can't rely on a number to locate anywhere. If you need to find a place you have to rely on a map (most places have them when you look up their address on the net etc, if they don't you're in real trouble). And taxi drivers, well, if you don't speak Korean, or don't have a map, well then you're in BIG trouble.

Diet. Many of my friends of late have suggested that I must be in heaven will all those korean barbeques and vegetables. The problem is the bbqs are basically all the same and the vegetables, well they seem to eat them for breakfast (when they eat it), lunch and dinner. Kimchi (or gimchi), this local delicacy is a Korean tradition. Basically it consists of pickled vegetables with lots of chilli sauce. This was originally done as vegetables weren't around during winter so they'd preserve 'em so they had food all year round. Great, wonderful. The problem is they're obsessed witthe stuff. Every meal, every meal. And I hate the stuff. I hate to not enjoy cultural tradition, and will try anything once, but this is one dish that I just cannot get into. Which is unfortunate. Reduces the amount of edible food at every meal. i've lost weight - something most people who've ever lived on expenses know is hard to do.

Language. Okay, so I don't speak Korean. Believe it or not its actually a simple language to learn to write and speak. However it doesn't help that you still don't understand any of the vocab. So like most of the very limited number of foreign tourists and business folk out here I rely on translations and english signs. The problem is that these are not consistent. The problem is the original english translation used Ps and Gs, but a more recent set of translations now use Bs and Ks (see Kimchi / Gimchi), or is it Ps then Bs.... Anyhow try and imagine maps and books which have 2 english versions. Depends on their age. Especially when you start out it can really ruin any ability to find a place.... especially when there are no street numbers either.

So here you are, hungry, lost and frustrated, so add onto it the work traffic which has to exceed even NY,Tokyo or london. It is Simple a mess. This place is probably worse than anywhere on most occasions. They're obsessed with cars over here and although they have excellent roads it doesn't seem to help them. The funny thng is all cars (almost without exception) have some form of dent, scratch or ding which describes the style of driving. The even better thing is the bus drivers play the same game which makes for an unpleasent but swift journey to work! It has to be said that the trains are excellent here if you're on a suitable line, the next major issue is walking to the station. Apart from the crowds of people you have to worry about bikes and scooters on the pavements!. Ordinarily I don't have a problem with motor bikes etc, but in this country they share both the road AND the pavement. So you see a sign that says 'bike' lane, which supposidly runs along side the walkway, you've really got to think out of the box and think about ALL bikes across all areas that could have pedestrians. They don't care either way, and will use all parts weaving in and out of us lowly people on foot.

So what have I been up to here! Well apart from getting used to the above delights, it does seem like not a lot. I've managed to go to HK which was great fun although exceedlingly expensive to celebrate England beating argentina - that was some party and Lang Quayi Fong is definitely the place to celebrate. I've also managed to pop back to Sydkenee for a weekend which was welcome relief from the seemingly unrelenting heat and humity.... it was actually nice to wear a jumper :-) The rest of the time is the everlasting search for good spots to eat and drink, and it seems to be working. The only problem, and dare I admit it.is that our favourite place is an american bar with some of the greatest food plus they do 'frequent flyer miles', which means we are racking up free bottles of whisky (which we get to keep in our own 'locker' with a name tag) for each return!

So as the rainy season seems to have started (1000mm falls in July out of the 1300 that falls each year), the rest of the day to day seems to plod along. Hoping to get at least one trip to Beijing before the end of the project and there is my sister's graduation to try and get back for but apart from that its just survival! The hong kong stuff seems to have gone off the boil for the moment, so will be soem 'definitive' news on what's next sometime soon.... Oh and of course, how can I forget, we have to sample the local 'dog stew' delicacy....