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By Marty, June 10, 2010 11:53 am

Just a smattering of photos from last week’s Scooter Inferno.

Me and my partner, Sam, with our Grand Prize winnings - a couple of helmets and goggles

The Bonus shot - Dancing Girls. Almost every store grand opening or big sale event has a pair out front

At Tohamsan Garden restaurant deep in the mountains between Ulsan and GyeongJu

At the monument to Canada nuclear engineers near the Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant. I think the radiation made me get a little crazy

The Sea Penis. I swear they look just like dicks in their tubs. Pick one up and it will pee

From left, Sam, Nikki, me, Scott, Dee and Wolfie. Two teams working together until the last 15 minutes

Lots more pictures, but some aren’t fit for publication. And here, also is a the video created for the awards banquet.  Check it out.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

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By Marty, June 8, 2010 12:26 pm

This past Saturday was the 2010 Scooter Inferno.  Of course it had changed significantly from the last Inferno – of 2004.  This one allowed bicycles to play in the event. Essentially, it was a timed scavenger hunt, with the goal of taking pictures of your team at each of several scenic, historic or just relevant places around the province. Bicycles being the slowest, got more points per site and more for farther out sites than scooters and motorcycles. Motorcycles, being the fastest, got the least points but were able to get to more sites.  I was in the scooter class and me and my partner, Sam, won the event.

We rode almost 160km in 4 hours, stopping to take pictures at temples, restaurants, ports and statues. Extra points were awarded for photos of traffic accidents, nudity (yes, I bared my ass) and creativity.

The rules were:

1. Do not break any Korean traffic laws. Speed limits and traffic lights must be obeyed. If you are seen in violation of the rules, you will be deducted 10 points for each infraction.
2. Sidewalks are for pedestrians and bicycles. Do not drive on them. It is only acceptable if you are parking.
3. All riders must wear helmets on their bikes. A moving bike with a rider without a helmet (driver or passenger) is immediate team disqualification.
4. This is a fun rally, no tampering or fooling around with other teams bikes.
5. The race begins at 11 am and finishes at 4pm. Camera memory cards must be submitted by 4pm. Every 5 minutes late will be a 15 point deduction.
6. The same number of bikes must begin and end the race. If 3 bikes begin the race, the same 3 bikes must finish the race. If there is a mechanical problem, the bike must at least have been picked up by our emergency truck.
7, All team members, except the photographer, must be in the photo.
8. One ‘team’ camera per team. Please don’t put ‘point photos’ on different cameras.
9. One photo per site.
10. At least one cell phone per bike.

Scoring system

Bicycles:

• Nudity Multiplier: Any photo taken with responsible nudity will give double the regular points. This is a PG event, please nothing disgusting.

And the locations and map:

Teams didn’t get the maps and list of sites until the night before the rally. We had to plan out our list of sites to ride to carefully in order to maximize points and minimize time. With only 4 hours of ride time set aside, hitting all or even most was impossible.

I had helped with the publicity by posting the event on Ulsanonline.com and creating the registration pages, but the real organizers did a great job setting things up. The created T-shirts for the participants, collected cash donations from the motorcycle shops in town and setup a banquet following the race to award prizes (also donated from the motorcycle shops) with all-you-can-drink micro-brew beer and a buffet.

Sam and I stayed with another team for most of the day, as its more fun in groups than not. We only split up in the last few minutes of the race and capitalized on some dancing girl points and a nearby stadium nudity shot (I opened my shirt) to streak ahead and win the event. We pulled into the ending rally point at exactly 4:00pm the cut-off time.

Since the goal was taking pictures of you and your team at each site, the best part was watching the slide show of everyone’s pictures on the big screen at the banquet. There were some very artful pictures, funny pictures and just plain crazy pictures.

Having been here a few years, I had been to most of these places. But not all – there were a few sites that were new. My partner was a relative newcomer to Korea and she was wowed by most since she hadn’t had time to visit many places. Overall, it was a great event to meet new friends and get out and see parts of Korea that otherwise would stay hidden. The weather was awesome, no one had mechanical problems, no injuries (other than a little sunburn) and lots of beer at the end.

I might get some pictures up later, but my partner had the “official” team camera I’ll have to get them from her.

I’m looking forward to next year’s Inferno.

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By Marty, May 23, 2010 5:37 pm

SaTang and Sparky.

Sparky, by virtue of spending her days at the hairshop with MyeognHee gets the “beauty treatment” and has had her nails painted. SaTang, meanwhile, still prefers the rugged look and a cowboy scarf.

I’ve got some video of the dogs playing at the park but have yet to edit it and make it viewable. In the meantime, a single picture is all I have the time for.

Hope everyone is well. Ta ta for now.

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By Marty, May 20, 2010 12:58 pm

I had planned to be doing a lot of writing over the past few weeks. I did get some writing in on my newest novel, but that’s taken a back seat. I got a few dozen pages written before being sidelined by other things going on here. What things you might ask? A plethora. All good.

First, we (my Ulsanonline.com partner, Fin, and I) have been approached by a multi-faceted group in Seoul. They had seen our site and the great stuff we’d produced for the foreigners in Ulsan.  The owner, a Korean-born, Brazil- and US-raised guy named Fabio sees a potential for us in a vastly underserved portion of Korea – the Gyeongsangnam-do province to the south and west of Ulsan. We’ll do a website, complete with lifestyle, travel and how-to information for the area. But we won’t stop at just a website. Fabio and his team are fired up about creating a magazine. A magazine that caters to both foreigners and english-speaking Koreans, complete with fabulous photos and glossy goodness.  I admit, I wasn’t keen on the idea as print seems to be going the way of the buggy whip, but they’ve got me wrapped into it. I’ll be co-editor of the magazine and Chief geek on the website.  The catch is that the local city and provincial governments all have foreign populations – teachers like me, engineers, factory workers – and they all have a budget to provide support in one form or another.

I started work as editor of the Korea Sun back in the summer of 2008. That was another glossy lifestyle magazine, but it went under before any of my writing or editing was published – costs were just too high to produce and revenue from Korean businesses for ads were just too low.  I’m somewhat wary of this being the same, printing and ads sales will be Fabio’s role and his other companies are already established. We might have a shot here. We’ll see. Faboi’s team includes several English-speaking foreigners, all of whom are counting on this to free them from teaching to focus on this full time.  I’m keeping my teaching job for now – until the $$ roll in regularly.

Here in Ulsan, with spring firmly ensconced and summer nearing, the outdoor season is upon us. We’re planning a “scooter rally” – a race/scavenger hunt to visit several places around the city and take creative pictures. I’ve been involved in the planning of this event as well.

With both the new magazine/website and scooter rally, I’ve been doing lots of programming. I’m chief geek here in Ulsan and forced myself to learn some new tricks.  Although I doubt most reading will understand what it is, Flash is a tool that is very prevalent on websites where animation, flashy, eye-catching graphics are required. You may not know what it is, but I guarantee you’ve visited and seen a website with flash.  It would be a shame if you didn’t see mine.

So here’s the programming/artwork I’ve been doing lately. These are likely transient and won’t stay up in these places forever, but for now these links work. I may, at a later date, pull them into a portfolio of sorts should I wish to build a resume for becoming a geek back in the USA someday. The website for the new magazine is still on ulsanonline.com – we’ll eventually buy a site expressly for that, but we can dovetail it off there for now. Check out the fancy lead-in here.  That cool map thingy – all Flash.  Then I made a banner for the scooter rally. It sits on the front page for now, but will certainly be gone after the rally. The cute little scooters drive across the page with links to the race site – all Flash programming. For the race site and registration, I made another fancy-pants banner on this page. The original “inferno” as they’ve called it started several years ago. They’ve skipped a few years, but its back with some flashy Flash.

Anywho, that’s why I haven’t written too much on here lately. I’ve been a busy boy.  More news later as it happens.

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By Marty, May 12, 2010 4:03 am

I still wonder how they do things so cheaply here. People here have to make a living, but somehow, they’re able to do things so much cheaper than in the U.S.

I took my bike into the bike shop a few miles away today. The shop nearest my house, although very close and owned by a childhood friend of my school director, has poor quality bikes and even worse service and repair.  Instead I go to OMK, a shop about 7km that has much better service.  They also advertise on my ulsanonline.com website, so giving them money is a reciprocal thing.  Even if they didn’t buy ad space I’d still go there.But, I digress.

I went in to their shop today to get a back brake adjusted or replaced. I’d lost braking power over the past week or two and not having worked on bicycle disc brakes before figured I’d just get them to fix it. They ended up giving me the full service. They replaced the disc pad, replaced a broken spoke on the rear wheel, realigned the wheel with some precision equipment, adjusted the front and rear  derailers, adjusted the front spokes, and the front brake.  They spent about 45 minutes pawing over the bike, plenty of time for me to browse the many accessories, while still wandering back occasionally to watch their progress.

Total price – 10k won. About $10. Of course, a few accessories caught my eye and I spent 36K total, but that doesn’t count. I didn’t have to buy those.

I wondered if maybe they give me a good deal because of the business we give each other on the website. Nope. I watched other customers come and go with equal care and attention paid to their rides with similar prices.  Korea is just cheap.

No small wonder then, that when I considered coming here years ago I remember thinking about the extreme change in salary from the USA to here. I wondered how I’d make do. I make only a fraction of what I made back home. An even more minute fraction of when I was at SGI making the big bucks. But here, I pay only 5% in taxes, the government subsidized health care is amazingly cheap, food is cheaper and I pay no rent.  Life’s good.

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By Marty, May 9, 2010 1:06 pm

Just a little Sunday evening spread here. We had gone to the park in the afternoon and let the dogs run for a bit.  Afterward, we came back to the house, cleaned up and went to a famous duck restaurant near our neighborhood.  I love the Korean style dinner, with dozens of little side dishes – far from the the meat-starch-veggie routine of western meals.

In the center is a small gas stove cooking a red-pepper infused dish of cabbage, onion, garlic and duck. On the far back right side of the table is a bowl of dong-dong ju, a rice punch that has a bit of punch to it. We had two bowls of that (which is drunk from a bowl as well) and we all got lit.

With us is Su-ki(r) and Ok-dong, both doing the Korean wave. MyeongHee, half in the bag already, tries to act cool. Don’t believe it. The waitress took the above picture and somehow blurred it. The one below I took, and has a little better focus although Su-ki is waving herself out of focus.

That was our Mother’s day, although they don’t have such a thing here. It was Parent’s Day yesterday and Children’s Day on Wednesday. Here’s to everyone having a super-dee-duper Mother’s Day back home.

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By Marty, April 25, 2010 2:17 pm

Yesterday I went rock climbing with my usual friends and a few new ones. There’s always people coming and going here.  One of the new ones is Vanessa – a native of North Texas, former resident of Dallas and an alumni of my alma mater, University of North Texas. Als0 being a climber, she was a somewhat frequent climber at Stoneworks climbing gym at I-35 and Beltline in Carollton.  What are the odds.  Half way around the world but from the same place. She’ll probably climb with us again.

Another reunion of sorts was with my dogs. They got to play with one of the litter. We called her “GaMyeon” or “Mask”, but her new name is “Corker.”  Good friend and frequent climbing partner Dee is the new mommy to Corker. The pups and their mom, SaTang, played on the mountain while we climbed.

Dee holds her pup Corker while Sparky and Satang pose.

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By Marty, April 17, 2010 10:53 am

Since having bought the scooter, it’s gotten much easier to get up to the mountain to do some rock climbing. I’ve been up there the last several Saturdays and gotten some great climbing in.  I haven’t taken many pictures – seems like I have lots of pictures of people who asses from down below I can no longer recognize.

Getting there, however, is half the fun. In the car, SaTang just sat and watched the world go by, sometimes even sleeping as I drove. No more. Those days are over, baby.  She still likes going to the mountain and running around, chasing ground squirrels, barking at birds and begging for handouts from the Koreans who bring their entire kitchen when they climb.  If you want to get out and play, you’ve gotta make an effort. And she does extremely well sitting on the floorboard of the scooter.

SaTang rides in style up to Munsu Mountain

In case anyone is worried about safety, she’s wearing a harness and is attached to the bike via leash. If she falls off, I can yank her right back on without choking her. No worries about that, as she’s content just to sit between my feet and lean against my calves.

Sparky, one pup we decided to keep is too little (and too jumpy) to go up on Munsu. She’s cute as hell, but so far hasn’t proven quite as smart as her mama. Our climbing areas have a few meters of walking area between the cliff faces and the next drop-off, but I’m afraid she would just be too curious.  We might wait until she’s a little less puppy before taking her out and turning her into a full blown crag dog. In the meanwhile, she goes to MyeongHee’s hairshop where she’s fawned over by MH and her customers.

Sparky, still mostly furball, models her scarf

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By Marty, April 15, 2010 1:35 am

The only thing missing is ‘rithmetic.  But I’ve been doing a lot of reading and even more writing.  I haven’t written much on my 2nd novel, but lately that’s changed.  I’ve been putting in few hundred words a day into it. I’ve still not broken big ground with the first one, but that’s fine. I don’t even have high hopes of doing it with this one, but it makes me happy to write.I might try the Lulu route to getting it published.

I had been spending time doing a lot of writing on my ulsanonline.com website but that has taken a back seat. I still write for it but I’m ok with getting in an article a week rather than 4 or 5 a week. These days, the movies section (translating the Korean theater listings of Hollywood movies into English) consumes more time than actually writing original material.

The reading has also been going at a fireball’s pace. I had been pacing myself, trying not to read too much and thus run out of material. But a friend gave me a few nice novels and I’m not so worried about exhausting my supply of prose.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Just wanted to poke my head in and say howdy to everyone.

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By Marty, April 11, 2010 1:58 pm

I’ve been here for over 3 years this stint – since January 2007. I spent another year year here in 2004/05. In all that time, I’ve had only two visitors from America – Kim and Mark.  I had hopes of some of my family members coming to visit so I could show off my little private Shangra-La.  But I’ve given up on that. That’s ok. Going overseas is not for everyone.  Perhaps I can instead bring a little Korea to you, the reader.

Today, MyeongHee and I went to Busan to go to Costco for some American food like cheese, cheerios and sour cream (I could use a few packets of Ranch Dip sent by the way.)  We went with two of her hair shop friends who stocked up on things themselves. All along the way, all three of them would Ooo, Ahh and Ypuda (Korean for pretty) as we drove through the mountains and passed cherry trees, pear orchards or wild red-buds in bloom. It was kind of funny – a musical accompaniment to the iPod I had playing on the stereo.

On our way back, we stopped at a galbi restaurant. That’s a typical Korean tradition – when friends go out together as the 3 girls did, dinner is on the agenda. I love galbi. Knowing nothing of  Korean cuisine back in 2004, it was the first meal I had as the school director took us all out to welcome me and say farewell to the teacher I was replacing. I fell in love with Korean food that night.  Today as we ate, I thought of just how different galbi is from the western diet I still crave (and spent large amount of money on today to sustain my habit of .)  It’s not just the ingredients themselves that are different, but the manner in which it is cooked and eaten.

Traditional Korean galbi is marinated, fatty pork strips grilled right at the table. A few of my close friends in Dallas as well as my two daughters have had it from a restaurant in K-town in Dallas. Only slightly different due to availability of the same types of lettuce and garlic, the Chosun Korean BBQ on Royal Lane just east of Harry Hines in Dallas is pretty close.  The beauty of galbi is the interactivity of the meal. One doesn’t simply consume a plate of meat, veggies and rice, but must actively participate in its creation. As the strips of pork are cooked, they are cut with a kitchen shears into bite-size pieces. Once cooked, a piece of meat is placed on a single leaf of lettuce (anything but iceberg will do.)  Most Koreans put a slice of raw garlic on it next, but some, like me, like their garlic singed a little on the grill. Then a red paste mixture of beans and red pepper is added to it. Depending on the side dishes served, and Koreans usually have numerous to choose from, one can add those to the lettuce as well. I like the marinated onions. Once you have all the meat, garlic, paste and veggies you want in your lettuce, wrap it all up and stuff it – it should be a large wad – into your mouth.   This shit rocks!  It’s a little spendy in Dallas, but here in Korea we can feast for cheap – four of us left full-bellied for less than $40, including beer.

So, for those of you who perhaps one day will come to visit me here, you’ll get your own royal treatment and be shown all the intricacies and niceties of Korean dining. We’ll feast on all that is well and good in Korean kitchens. For those of you who will likely never come visit (I’m not naming names), go eat some galbi and toast me while you eat. In Dallas, Chosun BBQ is best.  Chicago has it’s own K-town and there are likely numerous spots there to try it. South Dakota?  Not likely but there may be something.