A night at the opera

For Anna's birthday I bought her a ticket to The Phantom of the Opera. The production staged here in Seoul is an international touring company, and was sung in English with a Korean translation projected on screens on the both sides of the stage.

According to Wikipedia, Phantom holds the record for the highest-grossing entertainment-related event of all time. Judging from the capacity crowd tonight, Korea is making its contribution towards the maintenance of that record.









The show, appropriately enough, took place in the Opera House, one of four performance spaces that make up the
Seoul Arts Center complex. This picture of Anna and Jessica was taken before the show on the plaza outside the Opera House.

I want a fish!

This is my first experiment incorporating video on my blog. It would be great to get some feedback letting me know if you can play the clip OK, or if you have any problems. If this proves popular I will endeavor to post more video clips. Now, without further a do, here is my middle level class singing the all time classic "I want a fish!"

Victoria Secret, Korean style

I took this picture in one of the underground shopping arcades that connect the subway lines. 6000 won for a complete set (roughly $7).

Liberation Day—lets go shopping!

Monday was Liberation Day here in Korea, a national holiday that marked the 60th anniversary of independence from Japanese colonial rule. The holiday is celebrated on both sides of the DMZ, and this year a delegation from North Korea actually came to Seoul for official celebrations.


I like this picture because I think it sums up the South Korean miracle quite nicely. South Korea's economic growth over the past 35 years has been spectacular. Per capita GNP, only $100 in 1963, exceeded $9,800 in 2002. Emerging from economic ruin at the end of the Second World War, South Korea is now the world's eleventh largest economy.

Buildings all over the city have been adorned with national flags to coincide with Liberation Day, such as this one on the Shinsegae Department Store at Central City. Equally prominent is a very large Prada billboard. This temple of consumerism is located less than 70 km from the North Korean border. I often wonder what the average North Korean would think if they could walk down one of Seoul's streets.

Seoul from space

Using the incredible tool that is Google Maps, I put together some satellite images of my neighbourhood. If you haven't searched for your own address yet, do it. It is scary how much detail you can see!


Zoomed out at this level you can get a good feeling for just how enormous Seoul is, and really appreciate the urban sprawl of the city. The Han River divides the city in half, with the older, more established areas north of the river, and the newer, hipper areas to the south. The Han River is not navigable by boats because the mouth of the river is within North Korean territory.


This view of Seoul reveals why it is so hot in city—an almost complete absence of green space! This city truly is a concrete jungle! According to UN Population Division figures, Seoul's urban area contained 10.3 million people in 2003, making it the 22nd most populous such area in the world. In Wikipedia's list of metropolitan areas by population, Seoul is ranked as the 4th largest in the world, and one of the most densely populated. Apparently Metro Seoul alone has more than 1 million registered vehicles! No wonder traffic-jams are so bad!


This view shows both my house and my school. To get to work I combine walking, the subway, and the bus. A one-way journey takes about an hour. And, this is something I never thought I would say, I really look forward to the time I spend on public transit: both the subway trains and buses are air-conditioned!

Hot time, summer in the city

Temperatures remain hot and sweaty here in the big city. It would seem I'm not the only poor sap who doesn't have air-conditioning! Throughout Seoul on a hot day you can find a lot of older people taking refuge in the shade offered by the city's parks.


These pictures were taken in Incheon, but when I went for a walk the other day in Namsan Park (which is behind my house) the park was chock-a-block with older Korean women hiding from the sun.

Visiting General MacArthur

On Friday, Jessica and I decided to make a day trip to Incheon, the site of General MacArthur's famous amphibious landing that changed the course of the Korean War. Incheon is about an hour outside Seoul, and is connected to the capital via the Subway system.


Incheon's most famous landmark is a statue of General MacArthur situated in Freedom Park, a pleasant park that overlooks Incheon harbour. With Korean/American tensions on the rise lately, the MacArthur statue has become a flash point, and there is a growing movement to have it removed from the park. As a result, the statue is protected by a 24 hour a day police presence. We counted at least 20 police officers (some carrying riot shields!) hiding just out of view around the statue. Jessica asked one of them why they were there, and he answered by saying that they weren't allowed to tell us.

To see more pictures from my day in Incheon click here. Or, click here for a slide show.

For background on the Incheon operation check out this Wikipedia entry: Battle of Inchon

For more on the MacArthur statue controversy, check out these links:
Clashes Feared Over MacArthur Statue in Incheon
MacArthur's star fades in South Korea

Four-year-old computer whiz

From Korea.net:

Four-year-old kid earns word processor certificate

A four-year-old Korean boy has become the youngest in Korea to acquire a word processing certificate, one of the nation's computer proficiency licenses.

Lee Jae-hyuk, who lives in Daejeon, passed an exam for the third-grade word processor certificate which was conducted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in June.

The certificate is believed to be difficult even for adults to obtain because it requires an understanding of Chinese characters, English and computers.

Lee earned an eighth-degree Chinese character license just two months before he turned four. The test is designed for first-grade elementary school students.

Three months later, he upgraded it to a fifth-degree Chinese character license which measures proficiency in reading 500 and writing 300 Chinese characters, also becoming the youngest in the nation to achieve it.

Click here to read the full article.