03.3.2005

The longest game purchase run so far!
With my purchase of my fourth Nintendo DS game, I've now invested more money in software than I have in the hardware itself. My hardware and accessories did get an upgrade while I was in Seoul. I purchased a silicon case and screen protector to my make game system take more punishment from frequent use. I go pretty far to secure new games, and I'm willing to do a lot to make sure I get the most for my money when I can.

Today I picked up a combination Game Boy Advance/Nintendo DS game case to hold my expensive investments. The case also came with a longer stylus and space to hold it as well, which was a nice bonus. I'm pretty firmly commited to my purchase at this point, so there is no reason to hold back on purchasing games if I want them. Finding them cheaply has, of yet, been impossible.

But while I'm trying to put a positive spin on a needlessly expensive negative, I have something to look forward to. Because of my new job, and general chaos at immigration, I will be forced to leave the country to get a visa to allow me to teach at a new school. My teaching visa is still valid until October, but they insist I leave and return. I have to leave the country just to go through the formality of getting a new number on a card that says I will be allowed to do the same thing I already was doing, just at another location. They can't just change the entry on the computer that says, "Current employer" because that would make too much sense for everyone involved.

The sole bright spot about my "visa run" is that it will coincide with the release of two of the most anticipated games for the console at the exact time I will be in Japan to get my new visa. I'll probably be too busy to track down a game store in a completely new city in the time I have to get the visa.

I can still hope that I will be able to get the games before my time in Japan runs out. Somehow a trip to Japan where I pay for my own transportation (don't ask. I know it sucks.) will feel better if I can end up paying less than import price for my next game purchase.

posted by Torgodevil @ 10:53 PM 03/03/05: [Karma: 0 (+/-)] Perm-link

03.2.2005

The Copied Key Caper.
I had to pick up some odds and ends for my apartment today, so I went out shopping. Little did I know I would cause the aggravation of people the entire time by simply trying to purchase items.

The first things on my list were spare keys. I was only given one set for my apartment, and I wanted to have a backup just in case. There is a key copy shop on the way to the local grocery store, so I stopped in and had two more keys made. He told me to check them when I got home, which I had planned on doing anyway.

Having thought the key purchase was finished, I went to buy a fruit bowl for my dining room table. Seeing as I didn't have a regular table, let alone a dining room, I didn't have a fruit bowl either, which I intended to remedy today. After carefully weighing my options, I went with a wooden bowl that had a sole distinguishing mark, a smudged UPC sticker at the bottom. I had a feeling that UPC label was going to be a problem, so I looked at the other bowls of the same design. No difference. They all had smudged stickers.

I went up to the counter, and of course the sticker couldn't be read. She asked me the price, which I told her. I also said the other bowls were the same as this one. Then she asked me to show another gentleman where I found the bowl in the store. He accompanied me back to the shelf, took the little sticker from the other bowl, attempted to have that rung up, failed, then ran off with my bowl.

He returned with a walkie talkie that had a man spewing out numbers for the register woman to punch in. She then rang up my bowl purchase, but since the man still had my bowl, I couldn't do anything but wait. I actually found it more amusing than anything, but they looked nervous about me, as if this was going to be the thing that sent me over the edge into a homicidal rage.

After I finally got back to my apartment, I checked the new keys. I learned a valuable lesson immediately. Open the door with your regular key first, then insert the new key with the door ajar. Otherwise, you'll end up in my situation: Locked out of your house with a poorly made copied key stuck in your lock. The key was firmly jammed in the lock, but it wouldn't turn so it didn't matter.

I ran back to the key maker and after several graphic finger motions, indicated that my key was stuck in the lock. I also managed to scare off a woman shopping for a digital lock in the store. Perhaps she thought I was describing something else entirely, I don't know. The key guy came with me to my house immediately to help. Ironically, he didn't lock his unattended store.

He brought a can of WD-40 and some pliers. He got the key out, then told me something about different sized pins sticking in the door lock. All the WD-40 in the world wouldn't help the situation, so he took off and went to his shop with my original as I walked back after him. He finished up by the time I had arrived, I guess he also runs in sprint races as well as making keys.

The new key works well enough to get the door open now, so I've accomplished my goal. Drama just follows me in my wake whenever I leave this house however.

posted by Torgodevil @ 04:53 PM 03/02/05: [Karma: 1 (+/-)] Perm-link

03.1.2005

Lotte World

Today was March First, a public holiday commemorating the beginning of the independence movement against the Japanese occupation of Korea. This means people put flags out on their apartments buildings and don't go to work. Since I don't this week anyway, I took a trip to Seoul for the holiday to visit Lotte World.

Lotte World is a corporation owned theme park. All the restaurants, stores, and everything else is owned by the same company which hosts a large mall underground connected to the amusement park. The amusement park also has a small island attached by walkways where other rides are hosted outdoors.

I'll try to describe Lotte World. Imagine the "essence" of a amusement park shrunk down to fit in about 1/3 the space. Same rides are found here that are in amusement parks around the world. The log flume. The elevator drop. The roller coaster. The Imax "seat shaking" ride. The haunted house. The boat ride in dark tunnels with screaming children. For all those rides to be filled, add more people than would be considered needed to occupy that space. Now, imagine it indoors, with lines sprawling everywhere.

Now, imagine more people, who want to go from point A to point B, and will walk through lines to get there. Those people in lines actually represent only 1/2 the people actually in line, because whenever the line moves at all, a surge of people push people out of the way to reclaim their spots near other people that were holding their places. Also, no one says, "Sorry," at any time when they bump you out of the way. All the rides will be crowded but some will require 90+ minute waits for rides that take less than 5 minutes.

While this was hardly the worst place I've been to, Lotte World did have some significant perks going for it. It was extremely easy to find. (Seoul Line 2 Subway, Jamsil station). The admission fees were reasonable. You were also allowed to bring in outside food and eat in the park, which saved me money, as well as cut down the time I was forced to wait in the line for something in the park. Nothing was out of 10 minutes walking distance from one side of the park to the other. It was also extremely clean and the staff was polite. Being inside during winter was also a bonus.

Lotte's competitor is Samsung's "Everland", which is a more traditional outdoor large scale amusement park. I've heard it's significantly more expensive, very crowded on peak days, and not as centrally located, being out of Seoul and near another smaller city instead. I have yet to actually visit Everland, but I'll probably make the trek so that I can compare the two.

posted by Torgodevil @ 10:33 PM 03/01/05: Perm-link

02.28.2005

You can get it to go!

File this toy under "poor choice of marketing in a foreign culture".

posted by Torgodevil @ 05:58 PM 02/28/05: [Karma: 0 (+/-)] Perm-link

02.27.2005

Thank you to everyone that gave a hand!
Thankfully with all my moving, switching jobs, and everything else, I've had help from friends. Friends and coworkers turned an altogether impossible task into something managed in almost an hour of physical labor and several dozen phone calls to different places working out the details.

While it was only an hour of actual lugging, this doesn't do the move justice. It was a logistical nightmare in many ways. Things such as finishing paying bills in different peoples names, finding a rental truck, or getting my odds and ends finished at my old job would have been impossible without other people's help. I'm extremely grateful for everyone that has become a sort of extended family for me that lets me live in Korea without pulling my hair out in frustration.

That being said, this was still an exhausting move. I didn't sleep much last night because I was finishing up packing. I also stopped by my apartment last night to drop off some smaller items I didn't want crushed in the back of the truck. Not only did I move my apartment, but I had help getting my new apartment's gas hooked up so that I wouldn't freeze tonight.

I also did a little shopping while I waited for my delivery truck to arrive, and I got a new rice cooker. My old rice cooker was literally the simplest appliance I've ever owned, with a single switch to begin the cooking process. My new cooker has digital screen, a set of buttons, a clock for making rice on a timer, and several different modes for cooking a range of different meals. When I was purchasing it I was told that occasionally, since it's a pressure cooker, defective models have exploded before. I had a flash of my new kitchen covered in rice and shrapnel, then went and bought it anyway. That's living dangerously.

I'm in a PC room typing this, as my Internet service couldn't be installed until tomorrow. Other than that I'm a few pieces of furniture short of being completely moved in. I don't work tomorrow so I will spend the day shopping at second hand shops to get the items I need to complete everything I'm missing. March 1st happens to be a holiday, so I hope I can relax in my new completely furnished apartment by then.

posted by Torgodevil @ 08:10 PM 02/27/05: [Karma: 2 (+/-)] Perm-link

02.26.2005

Wow, this is a little bigger than I'm used to....echo....echoo..echoooo....
I've finished my contract, so my next thing to do before I start work at my new job is to move from my current apartment. I'm going from a small villa apartment to an actual Korean condominium style place that most families live in. Going from my current abode to my new apartment is quite a shock space wise. It's almost twice as large.

After living in cramped apartments since I've arrived here in Korea, I'm actually worried that I have too much space left open in my new place. I sense this will lead to some sort of sick compulsion to fill up my room like my other apartments in the past. Just having space to have a bed is a change for me, as I've grown used to sleeping on the padded floor mat now

I'm not sure what I will need to purchase outside of a few cooking appliances and some furniture. This is because I can't take these items with me because they belong to my old employer. I walked around the local department store just with my mouth agape thinking that if I wanted, I could actually have room for an item instead of having to think about how to stack things on top of each other to make it fit in my place.

Once I move the stuff I do own into my new apartment tomorrow I'm sure that feeling with be diminished somewhat, otherwise I might end up with a few things I'll be buying literally just to take up some space.

posted by Torgodevil @ 11:54 PM 02/26/05: [Karma: 0 (+/-)] Perm-link

02.25.2005

The importance of bridge maintenance
Today I officially finished my contractual obligations with my employer. I am heading to a new school, in a different area of town. It turns out it will be in my old neighborhood, not far from my first school, oddly enough. This all goes to reminding me how small the English speaking community, and the ESL community in general happens to be in this city. I keep getting reminded of this all day today as well.

As I was walking to work, I needed to stop at the bank to get money to pay the last of my bills. I waited in line at the automated cash machine, listening to the machine dutifully hum out cash to the person in front of me. Just as I was wondering if I should slip over to a faster moving line, the person in front of me turned around in surprise. It was the old cook from school who had finished working at the school the day before I did. She gave me a "small world" sort of look, then left the bank while I took her place at the machine.

Later, as I was leaving the school, I ran into a middle school student I hadn't seen in almost a year. She was walking in front of the door of the building right as I was leaving. The timing was perfect, otherwise I wouldn't have recognized her. She and I just chatted about what we were up to as we killed time waiting for the crosswalk to change. It wasn't anything special, but it was good to catch up with someone I hadn't seen for a long time, even if we didn't get along in class often.

This is the important thing to remember when dealing with people. No matter how stressed out moving schools might be, you'll run into these people again if you are here long enough. As tempting as it is for me to just run off and scream "The hell with this," when things get stressful, I'm glad I haven't when things like this occur.

posted by Torgodevil @ 07:35 PM 02/25/05: [Karma: -2 (+/-)] Perm-link