Weeks 1 and 2

Greetings anyone from Seoul! Some details of my life: My apartment is a short 5-7 minute walk from the office. It turns out that the area in which I live and work is called Daechi-Dong, the strongly-established tech sector of Seoul. Right in the vicinity, there are a plethora of massage spots, hot tub steam rooms, "happy ending" joints (ahem), and other lascivious "business men activities". Not that I would know anything about the aforementioned indulgences... but, it seems these places are pretty much everywhere I look, even outside of the 'hood.

So far, my days have consisted of waking up, taking an excellent hot shower, coughing up a lung, meditating, eating, dressing, stepping to work, getting a coffee, working, having a bang of a time playing games and doing other much more important biz dev stuff, getting lunch with Paul and Vincent, working some more, playing more games, strategizing market approach, eating a bowl of jja jang myung (yeah!), going to the Ibis Hotel and taking a shower, sauna, massage and heading home. It is pretty much paradise.

The other part of paradise is the overspill of fashionable, beautiful Korean women. Everywhere I look, I'm seeing mini-skirts (yes, in the dead of winter), almond eyes, black hair and hearing that wonderful Korean prosody. All the women I've met have been utterly charming and delightful - I admit that I am biased in this way - but, the level of attentiveness (noon-chee) and general social intelligence is so far unsurpassed in my experience.

Seoul is an amazingly easy place to live if you have some dough. You order a bowl of noodles, they drive it to you then come back after you're done and pick up the bowls and silverware. I don't know what's better though: the pollution of trip times 2, or throwing away non-recyclable plastics and paper (like in America). Tipping is not encouraged, so what you see is what you pay. You walk the bill up to the front counter to pay, rather than the time-wasting song and dance of a waitress doing it for you.

Speaking of which, America could learn a thing or two from Korea. Plastic shopping bags must be purchased, as must be garbage bags. Towels and mugs are generally brought in from home to work so as not to use plastics, styrofoam or paper, and in general, waste and consumption is on a much tighter leash.

Driving in Korea is INSANE. Red lights are OPTIONAL. You really have to see it to believe it, but I've never seen traffic in the city this bad, even in New York!! Thankfully I don't have to rely on anything else but my feet to get to work. And the resulting pollution really takes away from the quality of life. What's worse is that the jetstream dumps all of China's pollution on our heads as well. Thus, the sight of people walking about with masks on is not uncommon. It also makes the typical cold an absolute bitch to dump (cough, cough).

Did you know that Seoul has a population of close to 40 million people? That's a lot of Koreans, man! The second most densely-populated city in the world... I found some great night shots of the city on this computer. I'll post them for all to see.

The nightlife is amazing as well, although, to be honest I haven't really done the clubbing thing. The same rules of service and courtesy apply however. That really is such a surprising and pleasant aspect of living here. Now, if everywhere could be like this...

Anyway, if anyone wants more details about my various exploits in the city, you know where to reach me... there's an email link that should appear on this page. ohiokorean@gmail.com

Miss you all!