Thank you, guys, it was awesome!

Thanks, I really had a time of my life…stay tuned for one more post later…

The end is nigh

“Repent, repent, the end is nigh…” is a part of the bridge of Bring Me The Horizon’s song Chelsea Smile, and even though I took it kind of out of its context (the song continues with “repent, repent, we’re all gonna die”, which, I hope, won’t happen), it really fits into the context of my exchange and my blog. In two weeks, at this exact moment, I will be sitting in an Airbus A330-200 in Dubai, waiting for take off. I might be slightly drunk, as I will share the first three hours of the 5h stopover with Marc, and I’ll be preparing for the last stage of my journey, the flight to Prague. After another 5 hours I will land in Prague, and my S(e)oul eXchange will officially end.

Hey, hold your horses, man, there is still a long way to go…

Yeah, right, I still have two weeks full of reports, presentations, and exams. To my great disappointment, two of my exams are in the last week, i.e. on the 19th and 20th. That gives me only two nights for final partying and less than two days for packing, buying souvenirs and giving farewell to all my friends here. I guess I just have to try to enjoy it as much as possible…

And speaking of enjoying, past Monday another mentor-mentee meeting was held by the International Office. Even though some mentors turned up for the first part of the event in the Atrium, eventually the event turned into “Mentees in the Indy Pub” event. As my good friend Daniel says, “Fuck weekend, party on Monday”, and so we did. Wearing the KAIST hoodies we stormed the Indy Pub as a perfectly trained commando. And danced, singed and drank. Lovely evening, I would say.

<3 Prague

Today I found this video (well, someone had posted it on Facebook) and it’s so awesome that I have to share it here. I haven’t been home for a while, and even though I am not particularly homesick, this really made me look forward to Prague again. I like how it managed to show even the cheesier stuff in a cool way…enjoy!

On a completely different note, I got sick today so my mood is not top top. I hope I will get rid of the cold or whatever soon, so I can truly enjoy the last days here.

A kindergarten weekend in Hansan

Boosting your region’s reputation by inviting and subsidizing tourist trips might be useful, however, you have to choose your target group wisely. After this weekend I am convinced that we were not the right one.

The Hansan Treasure Hunting tour — “A night and a day with starry-starry jewel-like culture and nature of Hansan-myun, Seocheon-gun, Chungcheongnamdo”. Sounds lovely, right. Well, marketing is one thing, and reality is the other one. The whole trip started on Saturday morning night. Seriously, departing at 8am from Gangnam is an insane idea. Despite catching the only traffic jam in Seoul on Saturday morning we managed to get to the bus on time and even snatch some breakfast and coffee. The bus was fairly empty, as the only participants was our KAIST group and two people from KU — Jafah and Sam.

Hansan is located in the east part of Korea, a little bit under Daejeon, close to Seocheon. It used to be a fairly big city with a big market, however, as people moved to bigger cities, it became just a small and empty city. The initiative that organized the Eco-tour tries to revive the traditional market by attracting tourists into the locality and showing them around. . The trip was highly subsidized by various entities, so we ended up paying only 30,000KRW for the whole weekend.

We started out with a lunch, which was nice. The tofu soup is not my favorite dish of all times, but it is a traditional meal of Koreans, so it was fine. The tour continued to an old pharmacy, galvanizing shop, local market (few stands with fishes and vegetables, one with dog meat), a traditional blacksmith, makkoli factory and a shop with local products.

Next stop was a place where they manufactured the local fabric called (?) (damn, I forgot) . The whole complex looked awesome. A grassy square was surrounded by traditional houses with straw roofs, and it looked somehow clean and peaceful. In the interior we were shown how the individual thread are separated from the bigger braid and how the fabric is weaved on the loom.

The part that I was most exciting about before the trip and most disappointed about after was the following bicycle ride. On rented mountain bikes, which were tiny 24″ “Tesco-bikes” we went on a short trip to a reed field nearby. To make sure we are safe they tried to make us wear elbow and knee pads, which we all refused and wore only the helmet. To further ensure our safety we got advised not to use the front brake, because we could injure ourselves by doing so. Ehm, the number next to our age was in years, not months…anyway, after approx. 20 minutes of dangerous 10km.h^-1 ride we arrived to the “famous” reed field, where the movie JSA was shot. Surprisingly, the only thing we found there was reed. Fun fun fun…

For evening we had planned a dinner, “natural dyeing” and “local drinks and snacks”. Personally, I was already dead (or should I say “dyed”) and hungry, so I really appreciated the bibimbap (one of the best one I had so far). After dinner each of got a piece of white cloth and two rubber rings. Long story short, we tied the rubber rings around the cloth, submerged the whole thing into onion skin broth and kept it there for 20 minutes. However, because we had to rinse it in the bath with our hands, not only the cloth, but also my hand was completely yellow. And it did not want to go down. After that we put it in yet another bath, this time with some color (I chose khaki) and left it there. And then there was nothing…void…eternal emptiness. 7pm, in the middle of nowhere, no 7-eleven, no bar, not even a weird pub with few patrons. What can you do in such situation…Jump in a car and go shopping. Fortunately, Jin managed to persuade the owners to take us “downtown”, so after 30 minutes we had 18 bottles of beer and 10 bottles of soju, snacks, cookies and, of course, better mood:) Yay!

The rest of the evening was quite simple — traditional drinks and snacks, drinking games, more drinking games, karaoke, complaints from neighbors, dormitory, pillow fight (yeah, kinda gay), wrestling (still gay), sleep.

The next day was quite a hell. We still had to do some sightseeing, so we had to wake up quite early to get to the breakfast (=rice). After the breakfast we made some weird green buns, filled with bean paste (not bad, actually) and then went to see the local botanical garden. Blah blah blah, not interesting stuff. After that a visit to a typical house, a fishmarket and finally the ride home. If we weren’t stuck in a traffic jam for most of the ride and if the bus had some functioning aircon, I would be more than happy, however, we were stuck and the bus was hot, so I arrived to Seoul tired and grumpy. The never ending taxi ride to the dorm certainly did not help, so I was seriously relieved when I got back to the dorm and could just sit down and do nothing. And that’s all, folks.

Btw. I realize that this post is accelerating a little bit, i.e. it is more detailed at the beginning  than at the end, but that just happens, when you write about something not that exciting.

I am still alive!

No worries, I am still alive! I was not captured by North Koreans, ran over by a crazy bus driver or mesmerized by Girls Generation (just a little), but there is not that much going on. As the exchange progresses, we are doing less and less exciting stuff, because we have simply exhausted all the options for excitement. Moreover, I still have quite a lot of stuff to do, since I have to work at one assignment for my home uni, arrange things for my graduation, try to find some accommodation in Delft, all this while working on presentations and reports for my current school. So yeah, I am quite busy. On top of that, Christmas are almost here, and I have to figure out the presents and other stuff. Crazy shit!

So just quickly, the most exciting event since the Lantern Festival was our trip to Hansan last weekend. We spent the two days in Hansan-myun, Seocheon-gun, Chungcheongnamdo, and I will publish a post about it later (WIP, y’know). The rest of the week was surprisingly unexciting, since we did not even go out (!!!). Guess we’re getting old.

Anyway, it’s already December 5th here. That means I have about 17 days before having to pack my suitcase and going to Incheon. I seriously wish it was more…

Btw. now I know it, I am on Team Edward!

Shine Your Light

Writing this post finally made me look up the song I have had in my head since Saturday. I could remember just few lines from it and I could not remember the rest or who it sings. Now I now, it was Roxette — Love Is All (Shine Your Light). And why I had this song in my head? Because of the light!

Until last Sunday, Seoul had hosted the traditional Lantern Festival on the Cheonggyecheon Stream in the City Hall area downtown Seoul. To let some more culture into our lifes, we have decided to go there. At first, it was Kate, Marc, André, Rik and me. Since Marc was meeting some friend earlier, it was just Kate, André, Rik and me. Well, and because Kate had some other things to do, it was just…I think you know now.

Upon arriving to City Hall, we have discovered three things. Firstly, there was a huge “Occupy Seoul” demonstration in front of the City Hall. For unknown reasons, these people were protesting against the FTA with the US, which is weird, because I thought that it was generally accepted very well. The second thing was the presence of riot police in the whole neighborhood — police buses, anti-riot vehicles and policemen in full body armor with shields, everything looked like there was going to be a huge fight. The third thing was my SD card, or rather its absence. As soon as I took out my camera, I realized that the card is still in my laptop, which gave me space for only two or three pictures in the internal memory. Fortunately André was there to save the day, so all the photos in this post are from him. Merci beaucoup!

Before coming to the festival we made a short detour to Lotteria for a Giant Double Burger set (912 Kcal of pure awesomeness) and then straight to the lanterns! Well, not that straight. Since it was the penultimate night, there was quite a queue that was twisting and turning between the barriers. Even though we managed to jump part of the queue by simply walking next to all the people (smart guys), eventually we reached the point where we had to re-join the queue and wait. And wait. And wait. In total, we waited for approx. 20 minutes, which was quite uncomfortable, since it was around 0°C.

The lanterns are located directly in the middle of the Cheonggyecheon stream, which is a small artificial creek with pathways on both sides. You were supposed to walk on the right side and return on the left one, which, surprisingly, worked out quite well. The “statues” were lighted using electric bulbs, as fire would be too unstable/dangerous/stupid. It was quite interesting to see all the electric cables in the water, but I guess they just had good insulation. Or insurance.

The whole exhibition was also some kind of contest, however, I am not sure about the rules or where the participants came from. The themes of the lanters ranged from traditional Korean figures, over some Japanese figures, statues depicting child games, animals or abstract shapes to superheroes. Simply everything.

Approximately in the middle of the exhibition, there was a stand where you could buy your own lantern (real one with a candle) and put it in the stream. This surely looked romantic, unfortunately, these lanterns were stopped after few meters by a metal barrier, where they just kept piling up and setting themselves on fire. Not so romantic anymore.

The festival was really nice. Seeing all those colorful lanters glow in the dark was amazing, especially in the combination with the creek. Since the creek is below ground level, I felt nicely isolated from the outer world, as well as the cold weather. The only bad thing about it was that we were not able to get any donuts afterwards. C’mon, people, 11pm is not too late for a donut, duh!

Btw. on our way back to City Hall, there was no demonstration or riot police. I don’t know if they beat the crap out of them or if they just went away, but it was a little strange, because the place really looked like nothing has ever happened there.

Experience the future (and the past)

Tuesday was a special day. I got to experience both the future and the past. And no, Dr. Emmet Brown was not involved, and neither was a DeLorean or Marty McFly. But damn, that would be cool if they were. Anyway, on Tuesday, we went to the SK T.um, which is a showroom of SK Telecom, the biggest mobile operator in Korea.

The “um” stands for “Ubiquitous Museum”, which just seems like a fancy name, because it does not really make sense. However, the whole place is completely awesome, especially for a geek and techie like me.

Firstly, at the beginning of the tour, you receive a Samsung Galaxy S II, which is in T.um terminology called the T.key. The phone is equipped with a special T.um app and unfortunately it is otherwise locked up (you can’t access the underlying Android). After filling in your name, age group, e-mail and telephone, and taking a picture of yourself, you go to a Pond, where your T.me (virtual avatar) drops from the ceiling in a form of a water drop (fancy stuff!). The T.me then follows you during the whole tour. These things are possible thanks to the integrated ZigBee based short-range communication chip in the phone, which allows it to interact with the objects in the exposition and deliver location based data.

The first part of the tour is called “Play Dream”. It is basically a presentation of “ubiquitous life service”, i.e. a service that will be fully integrated into our life.

The first part is dedicated to Communication and Entertainment, and it is called the U.home. I assume that it stands for “Ubiquitous Home”, which is, well, something…Nah, that “U” shit does not make sense. The room is equipped with three beamers that form a huge screen. The screen is controlled by gestures, however, since they use an IR strip and a cam, the recognition is a little slow. Such thing would be much better with a Kinect-like technology. That would make it truly Minority Report-like. Just without the murders and Tom Cruise.

The room also includes a “multimedia table”, which is something like the Surface table from Microsoft. It is a big screen, that is NFC enabled, so putting the T.key device/mobile phone on the table enables interaction between the table and the phone. That way you can watch movies or pictures from the phone on the table or the big screen without any cables or docks. We made our tour guide play a Girls Generation music video on the huge screen, which made all the guys much happier…What I really liked was direct transfer of files between two phones laying on the table. The transfer was however done via 3G/WiFi, as ZigBee is not built for high speed transfer between devices.

The second room was focused on Gaming (U.entertainment). That was a little lame, because using the phone’s accelerometer for controlling a game via 3G/WiFi/ZigBee is quite sluggish. We were doing some racing and I finished second, so I am not complaining, but still, it would need improvement for real world deployment. Funny thing was when the guide was reading who is on which position and said “On the second position is……..Honza……..is that your real name?”. Umm, no, madam, I just made it up…

Next part was “U.driving”, which included a real car mounted on a hydraulic platform. The car was called Spira, which is a new Korean-made sportscar. Morgan and Lauriane were the two “volunteers”, so they had to go through a simulated ride. The mobile phone acted as a central controller, displaying information about the car (telemetry), serving as a GPS satnav, allowing to pay for the fuel (ehm, electricity) and do other funny things. Frankly, this part was not that impressive, because this is something that will be quite hard to achive in larger scale, thanks to the fragmentation of in-car systems, but it is a nice concept, that could make driving easier.

While they were still driving, we moved to the next section focused on content creation (U.media). In this part our photos from the phone were used to create a 3D advertisement. Since it was just a 2D picture, the photos were simply used as a texture, so you can imagine how it looked. Moreover, the 3D effect was not that good, so I would say this was the weakest part of the exhibition.

U.fashion. Girl’s heaven, guy’s hell. Through a 3D scanner, Karin’s body was scanned, analyzed (height and other things) and digitalized. That allowed her to virtually try on various clothes and outfits. I think this might be quite useful, because it saves time and effort. I don’t understand why the virtual avatar was standing in a middle of an intersection, though. As usual, the “app” allowed you to buy the clothes right after trying them on, without having to leave your home. It would be nice if a 3D printer could print them for you instead:)

The 3D full body scanner

Last part of the “Play Dream” concept was U.shopping. Based on our profile, the system recommended us some goods, which we could directly buy. Every product was associated with some short “game”, which allowed you to “try before you buy”. This concept does not seem that impressive, considering the recommendation algorithms used by e-shop or the “virtual” shopping mall in the Seoul subway.

Since we were in quite a hurry, we only ran through the second part of the exposition called “Play Real”. While “the dream” showcased what will be available in the future, “the real” showcased what is already available. There was an augmented reality app for factory controlling, which is supposedly already used, a dock for the mobile that allowed instant switch from the phone to a big TV (erm, HDMI all the way…) and a CSR thing, which I did not understand, because I really have no idea what does CSR have in common with visually impaired people.

And that was the end of the tour. We did not get the chance to try out all the gadgets and thingies in the Play Real section, so we just returned our T.keys and went home.

Well, only some of us went home…André, Marc and I went for a lunch to Lotteria (Giant Double Burger set FTW!) and then we took a cab to the War Memorial in Yonsan. The WM was the last thing that I really wanted to see among the touristic places in Seoul. And it was also one of the coolest. The memorial, as its name hints, is a museum of all the wars and occupations the Korean peninsula has experienced so far.

The exposition is quite cool, actually. Of course, it is nationalistic and to some extent over-the-top, but that is understandable. This country has been through a lot of wars (almost as much as the Czech Republic), and the scars are still visible. The most notable one is, of course, the DMZ and the separation of the two Koreas. The museum is divided into several rooms, with each one representing different part of Korean military history (Memorial Hall, War History, Korean War, Expeditionary Forces Room, ROK Armed Forces Room, and Large Equipment Room). Each of these rooms displays all the important things, such as uniforms, weapons, paintings of battles etc. Obviously, the biggest part is dedicated to the Korean war, with 3D battle scenes, models, videos etc. There is even a “Combat Experience Simulator”, which is a simulation of the combat using lights, sounds, smell etc. To absorb all the information in the memorial one would have to spend the whole day there, which we could not since André had a meeting later that afternoon.

The memorial also has an outside exhibition space, with different pieces of military vehicles and planes. There are both UN/S. Korean and Chinese/USSR/N. Korean machines ranging from AA guns and Howitzers over tanks, armoured vehicles and fighter jets to big bombers, such as B-52. There is also a replica of a guard ship that got involved in a naval battle against North Korea, however, I can’t remember the details. We were really excited about it — such place is definitely every guy’s dream…:)

A B-52...that thing is HUGE!

Marc and André standing next to the landing gear of a B-52

"Oh Captain, my Captain..." — André is on a boat!