Korea Life Blog - Namchi, the South Bastion and Aliens




While looking around for sam gae tang in Suwon we noticed people walking up into the distance. I talked Julie into having a look. Turns out it was this: Namchi, the South Bastion, an old fortress.



The firt person we noticed was this oddball standing there wearing a UFO poster. What's going on here? we wondered.



Oh my...what is that? Holy crap, it's a real alien! The aliens are really here. They've come to take over the Bastion!




And holy shit! They've spotted me taking their picture. Oh my God, run!!!!!!!!! What's this? Julie's not even scared? Oh, I see. Turns out these guys are from the Raelian religious group...you know, the one Julie donated money to before on the subway. Amyway, look closely at the two photos, you can see that alien has long black hair like a Korean girl wow.



Rather than capturing and taking me back to his spaceship, this guy explained to me they are having a big meeting somewhere this week. Julie really wanted to go, but I talked her out of it, hehe.



Looks more like a sci-fi movie poster than a call to religion. Anybody remember that show Mystery Science Theater 3000 in which the puppets and that guy watch really bad sci-fi flicks and make fun of them? I love that show. Maybe I'll download a few off the net for old times sake.



There's the photo of the Raelian cult leader himself. He may be a nice guy and make a lot of sense, but what's up with that hair?



Lot of framed displays set out. I guess the one on the left is a rendering of the Alien embassy needed to be built before the aliens will come...hence the need for donations. I think the picture to the right is depicting the aliens when they came and visted ancient humans. Why is it all the major religious happenings occured so long ago?



More "evidence"...I though all those crop circles were made by people swing kaiser blades around or something. (some folks call them a slingblade, mm hmm).






There goes the gang out into Suwon to spread the holy word of the Aliens. I can't imagine what an old ajumma or halmony would think seeing this.



OK, here we go. Julie is not at all pleased by the site of stairs. She hates stairs with a passion - so much so she'll walk way out of her way or wait for ages at a crosswalk to avoid them.



You can't tell but on the way up she started getting angry at me. "You're so selfish," she said. "I don't want to go up. What are we doing?"




"Oh my God...more stairs? What's going on? Don't do this to me."



At last we made it. Almost the second she saw there were no more stairs, she cheered right up and even allowed me to snap this picture of her and approved it for the web. Click for full size!



There really wasn't much to the place. Just a long wall (which reconfirmed for me the fact I have absolutely no interest in seeing the Great Wall of China) and this nice guard post, though not so impressive considering the amount of stair climbing required to see it.




Look closely, there's an actual guard on duty. Wow, I know I feel safe, how about you?


That's about it. Nothing too special but we did work up an appetite climbing all those stairs at least...

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - KOBA 2004



Here are the photos of the broadcasting/recording and lighting equipment show Julie and I went to on Saturday.



The event was held on the third floor of Coex super mall in Samseong-dong. There were several "halls" full of the latest technologies. A massive showcase with at least a millions of dollars worth of equipment. This would not be the time for an earthquake.







Hey can someday show me how to work this thing? Does anybody know how to work this thing? Hello?




I came here specifically to check out the Fostex section, which unfortunately was very small. I was hoping to see one of those multi track recording/effects machines with the built in cd-burners.




They did have one model, but this one is the bare basic version and uses compact flash memory instead of a hard drive. I ended up trying this out later at the Nakwon music center which I dragged Julie to again. Luckily they let me try it out. Turns out the effects sounded really bad, though I'm not 100% sure if that was because of the speaker he connected it too. Still, I didn't want to take a chance. Also, the price for this is $150 more than in the states. Needless to say, I decided not to get it. I'll bring Julie back there this weekend and see else what I can look at for an hour and not buy.



"We are the world, we are the children..." Quick, how do I press record?




Lots and lots of mixing and recording equipment to oggle at. I guess this would be any producer's heaven on earth.




A couple of Korean dudes hanging out, one playing a bass, engaged in some thought provoking conversation it seemed. There was also a lot of amplifier/speaker equipment here but the pic I took came out all blurry. You can see some in the background in this pic at least.




Look there! It's an apple iMac. I almost bought one of those before. Julie was excited. She wants a Mac now and there was an Apple show going on.



Here's the Apple booth with somebody giving a live tutorial of Apple video production software.



A beautiful Apple flatscreen display showing easy to use recording software. I almost want to buy a Mac just to use GarageBand.



Julie was fascinated. She's here checking out the mouse and wondering where the scroll wheel and right buttons are.



Oooh, ahhh...the insides of a powerful G5 computer. It's these kinds of systems that are used in much of Hollywood movie productions and every other kind of productions for that matter. I used to have an iBook, back when OSX first came out. I really liked it. My friend has been using his for 4 years now and not a single virus or other problem. The only reason I sold mine was because at the time I was into games, and a lot of games weren't available in Mac versions...wish I still had that computer now though.



Lots of tutorials and demonstrations going on everywhere. It would have been more exciting if I could understand what they were saying. I wanted to watch the Adobe software show.



I was trying to get a picture of that huge, crystal clear display there but people kept walking by. Finally I gave up and ended up with this shot. I want one of those screens in my apartment.



There was also lighting equipment displays, but I did a horrible job of photographing any of the actual equipment. On the wall you can see some of the lighting effects they were modelling anyway.



One last shot. Yay, more mixing equipment. Each unit in it's own right is pretty damn amazing, but all together it's overwhelming. One thing though - I just can't believe technology. I can't even figure out how to use things like these, let alone comprehend how people engineer them.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

Korea Life Blog - Weekend Update


Julie and I had a great weekend. We went to a broadcasting/recording equipment show at Coex which was just fantastic and which I have a lot of pictures of coming soon. Then I dragged poor Julie to Nakwon Sang Ka music center once again where I drove her crazy testing out equipment, having her haggle with the store clerks, pondering whether or not to shell out 120,000 won on a distortion peddle or just getting a more expensive all-in-one effect unit, then finally giving up and not getting anything. (For anyone interested: I have software on the computer which I can add effects to the guitar, but only after the recording, not real time. It's also not much fun jamming along to Iron Maiden with no distortion.)

That was Saturday. Today's adventure included climbing a lot of stairs to look at an old fortress, an encounter with aliens (pictures to come soon), beating Julie at wrestling at a Playstation bang, and a delicious sam gae tang(me) and bimim bap(Julie) dinner.

written by shawn matthews    -|link