Why I love Korea? Reason #1: Great Transportation Infrastructure!

The time is 6:00pm... your at your office, it is a Thursday night, you want ... you want to be at your public speaking club at 7:30pm. The streets are as crawdad as you would expect in a Thursday evening... what would you do?

It’s Saturday morning you wake up @7:30am , you wanna meet your friends for hiking at a mountains .... it is 50kms away and you need to be there at 9:00am... how can you reach there early without spending a fortune?

It is Sunday, you and your friends agreed to meet a really nice restaurant at a new area in Seoul which you’ve never been to... do they have to send you a map? where will you meet with them?

The answer to all above is.... use the subway!

Ok, so Seoul is not the only city with subways... granted...

However, which subway system do you know which would allow you go from one side of the city to the other with less than 3 dollars???

As a matter of fact, the average cost is 1.5$ per trip!

I mean, ok, I love Japan’s metro... it is very quite and neat... however, it will cost you a considerable amount of money only to travel two stations! (a minimum of 2 dollars... !) you can easily find yourself spending 10$ taking the metro in Tokyo!

That’s why in Tokyo you see a lot of people riding the bicycles, it makes sense financially.

Even in Europe, while it is cheap to take the metro, it doesn’t compare to Seoul’s costs. The only please I know of which is cheaper than Seoul is China... there it will cost less then 1$.

People here use the metro station’s gates as a rendezvous points... (ok, see you at Yeoksam station, exit no.3) or (arrive to Itaewon station, go to exit 2, then walk 200 meters and you will find the place on your right)

 

Distances between stations

In addition to the advantage of using the metro, you can also use buses. I heard from some people that if you would use a certain buses which happen to be on the same route as your subway, they would not charge you at all. or they would charge you less considering that you have just used the subway.

One more thing which I love here.... the taxies!! They are “compared to other places I have been” is cheap!

I mean, I have been living in Dubai for the last few years, and I travelled to Europe and Japan... firstly in Japan, don’t even dream of taking the taxi! It is sooo expensive... in fact, I saw an ad advertising a helicopter ride from Narita airport to downtown Tokyo, comparing it with taxi fair! (check it out here)

To compare the average trips in countries I been to:

Dubai: 15~20 dollars

Madrid: 20 dollars

Seoul: 10 dollars

Japan: 25~30 dollars

Germany: 20~25 dollars

After putting down those prices, I googled this and I found this nice list comparing the costs in different countries per 3km

However, that list doesn’t take into account the cities’ roads nature... for example, in Dubai it would be very normal to run 90km for a trip, and in Seoul or Japan, the density of the city is much more higher, you would never go over 20-30km in a trip. So, I stand by my “costs”

Actually, in countries like Japan, it would sometimes cheaper to rent a room for the night (esp. after mid-night, when metros and buses stop) then to take a taxi home at night rates!

And one more thing, in Korea in general, public transportation from a city to city is cheap! (compare to Japan and Europe, in some cases the bullet train’s cost is very much similar to the cost of a plane ticket! ^^

Well, people in Seoul, enjoy your country while it is inexpensive! You never know what will inflation bring you !!

Korean real-name verification law

Yesterday, when I tried to upload a video on youtube.com, I got this message when I clicked the "upload" button:

We have voluntarily disabled this functionality on kr.youtube.com because of the Korean real-name verification law.

It was interesting for me, it was not the first time I see this.

When I tried to book a seat at a movie theater, I was asked to give, not only by credit card number, but also my "Alien registration number"... (yes... in Korea I am an Alien!!!) ^_^

It is equivalent to a "social security number"

The point is, Korea government feels that people shouldn't be allowed to post anything and everything they want... I can understand this...

I read many stories about teens getting cyber-bullied, and who committed suicide because of this. This movement might prevent this.

You can keep having an alias, so people reading your comments/blogs/videos cannot know your real name, but IF the government needs to track you down, they can know your real name easily.

Some people are afraid that, since all it takes for someone to assume your personality is to find your social security number and then use it to impersonate you... it might do more harm than good.

However, this whole law was passed due the suicide of a very famous Korean actress. Her name is Jin-sil Choi (google it)

She committed suicide over some internet rumors.

This law is 1.5 years old now, I am not sure of it's successfulness yet, I am interested in getting people's reaction on this.

As far as the youtube.com is concerned, I found a "walk-around" for this issue... simply changing your location to "world-wide" solves this issue.

Apparently, google.com (owner of youtube.com) is not very happy about this law! Being anonymous is still one of the biggest attractiveness of the internet. Some people will not let it go without a fight!

Who said that blogging is the end of books? A Book Launching event might tell you otherwise!

 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending, for the first time, a Book Launching Party.

The event was sponsored by a networking group. You simply show up, pay around 15$. This included a copy of the book, plus a light dinner buffet. One of the multi-talented volunteers acted professionally as cook and a photographer.

Two days ago, I was chatting with my father over Skype… and we

Yaomy (Seonannam) Delivering her presentation

found ourselves asking a question: “What is the major difference between Arab people and Koreans?” . I had this hovering in my mind during the meeting.

The event was attend by around 30 people.

The author was quite young. I believe that she is in her 20s. {insert her photo}

She spoke for around 30 mins. about her book.

The interesting part for me is a phenomena what seems to be going around these days. She had started a blog about her own love relationship experiences. She attracted her own blog followers.

Her blog have reached the list of “100 most visited blogs in Korea”

Soon afterwards, her blog started to receive requests from readers to get advice on their experiences.

The book: “The Psychology of Love”

She kept answering them, through the course of one year, she accumulated enough material to create her own book and called it “The Psychology of Love”

The interesting things I learnt here are:

1) You don’t have to be a reference in a subject to qualify to write about, all you need is passion,

2) if you have a bright idea, you don’t have to keep it to yourself. In fact, sharing it with others and publishing parts of your ideas online don’t necessary means that someone will come and grab your idea. I believe that people who steal other’s intellectual ideas are typically quote lazy and need a finished product to copy-paste. They don’t usually take half-backed products and turned them into a fully fledged product… since more than 80% of the work in this. Most people can come up with ideas, but very, very few have the discipline and stamina to go all the way. So, don’t worry TOO much about this. This young lady is a live example.

3) Fast acting also seems to be an important issue. The full cycle of her deciding that she wants to collect all these ideas into a book was around 1 year only. Keeping at it keeps you focused and enthusiastic.

4) Having people like the gentleman who was sponsoring the event can accurate the process and, more importantly, keep your fire going.

So, in conclusion, sharing your idea with positive people and hanging out with like-minded people and keeping at it are keys to success.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Jungmo Park

 

Event was sponsored by  Jungmo Park, a passionate entrepreneur, creator and founder of Cornix TriPes Group.

He is a peoples’ person, a natural leader, an Includer and a good friend.

 

 

Yaomy

The book was written by

Yaomy (Seonannam)

 

her blog:

http://www.cyworld.com/yoamy

You can buy her book by this link (in Korean)

 

 

 

It was a great event. Special thanks for Hye Kyung Hwang for inviting me and thanks for Edward Lee for his great cooking

Edward Lee.. a computer programmer, a multi-talented young man who volunteered as a photographer and a signature cook!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More photos from the networking event and the book event :

Full Album here

Doseon Sa Tour Part 4 – A Statue of a lost motherhood

Now, pack to Doseon Sa tour. After we moved past the scary four greeters in the “Entrance to Temple”, we are faced with a different kind of drama.

Statue of Lost Motherhood

Our knowledgeable professor, Dr. David informs us that this statue is not originated Korea, in fact, it is from Japan. It is relatively new, not more than 40 years old.
I know it is new since I was expecting to find a lot of ancient, old items during our visit. After 4~5 of asking the same question and getting a “no”, Dr. David told me “unless I tell you so, consider it new!” Then he explains that because of the many wars Koreas had, it is not easy to find art which is well preserved all those years, since the invaders have this nasty habit of bringing to the ground everything which happened to be in their way!
Since I just saw the Moguls greeting me in the entrance, I wasn’t very surprised… after all, we Arabs also suffered the wrath of Moguls long time ago, although they only visited us once, they erased a lot of our culture (see “fall of Bagdad” in 1258A.D), but the Moguls invaded Korea 6 times! and the total of times Korean was invaded in its recorded history is more than a thousand times! No wonder, then!
Anyway, this statue was erected as a way to pray for the souls of the unborn children who were aborted by mothers who chose not to become ones.
You can see the child reaching out to his mother in the bottom of the statue, and the unborn children in the bottom of the statue.

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

Women still visit this place to put flowers and ask forgiveness from their would-have-been sons & daughters. The saddest part for is the number of flower bouquets which was put today.

From 2010_05_15_Doseon-sa_Tour

It is the price we have to pay for going forward?... I wonder...

Doseon Sa Tour Part 3 - On the way to Doseon Sa – A visit to a Buddhist temple of a different denomination

After the birth of Buddhism in India (around 2500 years ago), it spread in Asia and reached Korea after 800 years after it’s birth(1). It was later “purified” and modified refined to suit the Korean ways and the influence by the Korean Buddhist monks.

Therefore, in modern Korean, you would not find a lot of influence from India at , when it comes to design of a Buddhist temple or the different statues or architecture.

However, the widespread of a different denominations, allows you to sometimes find the Indian influence kept preserved.

By a sheer coincidence, we stumbled upon this lost temple in the edge of a mountain in Korea on our way to Doseon Sa. (actually the bus driver punched the wrong GPS location on his on-board computer and took us to the wrong Doseon Sa temple!)

I am not sure if it a case of a copyrights infringements but, anyways, I got some nice (and rare photos, according to Dr. David, our tour guide)

You will see in the photos what looks as Ganesha or Kali in Hinduism.

We are told that the many arms symbolizes helping the many people this god has to help and the many faces symbolizes that this god is looking after people’s lives to help them.

I leave you with the photos. Since they are uploaded in high resolution I highly recommend that you examine the photos in and see the items the god is handling in his hand. Very detailed art! 

After you click on the photos below, it will take you to Picasa, then click this button in the top right of the statue photo to see the photo in full size. Then you can either use the mouse to drag it around or save-as on your PC.

Enjoy!

 The statue

 A closeup of the statue

 The traditional Buddhist drum overlooking the above statue

 a nice art work, click to examine in closeup

 both side by side

 

(1) Wikipedia

Doseon Sa Tour Part 2 - Entrance to the Temple

So, today we continue with the Doseon Sa tour.

Today I will explain the entrance to Doseon Sa Temple

One interesting thing is that the temple entrance is also an entrance to the Bukhansan National Park.

Bukhansan National Park holds the Guinness World Record for the most visit park in the world!

This place is visited by 6 million people per year!

Most of these are Koreans who want to hike at the Bukhansan Mountain or the Dobongsan Mountain.

In Korea, Hiking is the number 1 sport or, hobby, here… they love it!

In Dubai, on the other hand, my number 1 hobby was to eat fast food and watch 4 Simpsons episodes re-runs every weekend… :-D

However, for some reason I gain a little bit over 10 kgs in the last year alone (D’oh!)

I look forward to shed some weight here… maybe I’ll give this hiking thing a try sometime…

So, anyways, this is a map to the park in general (we are at the lower right):

Overhere, you can see the gate, guarded by four gods, representing the four directions.

The north and the south gods: To the right is the north god (the symbol of death) and to the left is the south god, holding the peril of wisdom:

They were portrayed after the scariest thing an 8th century  man could imagine……… A MOGUL COMMANDER!!

Yes… the Mogul were true to their reputation  at that time too.

And below are the gods of east and west…  Now, imagine you’re a simple farmer living in the 8th century and you see the scene those part-of-four coming to the temple...????

This was supposed to make you “good” once you reach the inside…

 

Of course, try THAT with a kid today who has seen Saw I, II and III before he is even 10… ! 

I doubt even such a 3D effect might work on him!

Kids today…

Royal Asiatic Society in Korea - Doseon Sa Tour Part 1

So, I am here in Seoul, Korea... finally...  In 3 short weeks, I have managed to revert to my earlier habits in Dubai... work, home, work, home, work, home, work, work, work.... home... weekend, sleep on weekend, sleep more on weekend... work, home... etc

So, what should I do?  I have promised myself, even before I come to Korea, to mingle with other people, Korean and Non-Korea, outside the workplace....

It was about time I keep a promise to myself... just for a change!

But how can I do that?  So, I searched the net a little bit and using Google and other Korea guides... and somehow I stumbled upon this website: http://www.raskb.com/

It turns out that is an expedite group which makes trips on Saturdays and lectures on the weekday about Korean culture. So, being interested in getting to know more about this country said "Why not?"  We gathered at 10:00am on Saturday, in front of a subway station.

We took the bus.  Doseon Sa (pronounced "Do-Seon-Sa") is a very well known figure in Korean history. He was the reformer of Buddhism in Korea.. probably the greatest Buddhist monk who ever lived!    

Why? Do you really wanna know why? then prepare yourself for a history lesson!  I know, I know, most of us used to hate history maybe even more than geography classes...!

But I am going to talk about his life only...  courtesy of Prof. David A. Mason, the university professor who guided us during the tour... one thing about this guy, he really loves history and the Korean culture  Usually, when you see someone passionate about something, chances are a lot of this passion would rub on you...
which what happened to me in this case!   I will be brief, for a detailed biography about Doseon's life, visit Prof. David's webpage:

Doseon-guksa: A brief Biography

Chinese Characters at the age of 2? WAW!

So, at 835 AD, soon after her was born, Doseon was a prodigy child said  to have learned reading Chinese characters when he was two, and decided to shave his head and  become a monk when he was 15. He entered a branch of Buddhism which was dedicated to learning scriptures.

The average monk typically 20~30 years to become enlightened in this discipline of Buddhism….. in order to become fully enlightened.

… It took Doseon only 3 years to memorize all the scriptures and become fully enlightened!

After this,  he decided to pursue another branch or Buddhism, which was more focused on meditation, after a few more years he was enlightened in that discipline as well!

(think of it as obtaining two PhDs, back to back, in less than 6 years!)

So, our story hero, Doseon, was a fully enlightened monk at the age of 20
Was that enough for him? No! He decided to travel to China, the birth land of Buddhism, to purse more branches of Buddhism and learn more.

He learned about the energy of the Earth’s the different powers of energy

Doseon-guksa: Tao-Abundance National-Master (826-898)

which is concentrated in specific locations and then transmitted through the mountains to different lands. (“Final Fantasy-The movie'”.. anyone?)

It was a serious study which combined geography and astronomy and religion.

Upon returning to Korea, using his vast knowledge, he started having disciples who carried his teachings.

Studying Chinese history and mathematics, he knew that the current (then) Korean dynasty are coming to an end. Having predicted who will be next King or so, he devised a map (using his knowledge of the power of earth) to decide where the next Korea capital should be. With blueprints on were each Buddhist temple should be and in which exact location (in order to channel the power of earth to protect the capital)

He did all of this and put it in a sealed envelope and delivered it himself to the father of the next king’s father. To and unmarried man who was building a house. He told him that his house will witness the birth of a great person. And he gave the papers to him and ask him that they should not be opened until his child is mature enough.

Doseon died shortly after that.

Well, the story goes that. thirty years later,  his child grow up to become the king of Korea and opened and followed Doseon’s plans for a new capital.

This temple was built to honor Doseon himself.

(To be continued...)