Articles by mgedwards

Chillin' at the chimjilbang

It was another typically Monday until tonight.  I spent another busy day at work today and came home feeling a bit sluggish.  My colleague from Taipei who’s heading back home on Wednesday convinced me to go with him to a chimjilbang (침질방), a Korean bath house and sauna.  I hesitated to go, but he insisted because I probably won’t see him again until next year.  (He would make a great salesman.)  Another colleague joined us and we went together to the bath house in Hanam district.  Chimjilbang is very popular throughout East Asia.  I visited a similar place in Shanghai, China back in 2002.  It’s a great place to relax and unwind.  It’s cheap entertainment—6,000 won (about $6.00) will rent you bath clothes so you can rest without being self-conscious, and that’s it.  Massages cost extra (I skipped the massage tonight).  I highly recommend visiting one while you’re in Korea.  China’s are even cheaper and perhaps more fun, but Korea’s are also very enjoyable.  It’s one of the better things to do after a stressful workday.

Without going into too many gory details, here’s a sketchy summary of what happened and what to expect when you visit a chimjilbang.  First, you shower.  It’s a collective all-male or female shower (not unisex), so you need to leave your modesty at the door.  Group bathing is much more common in Asia than in the U.S.  After showering, hit the pool to relax in very, hot water.  It’s extremely warm.  After awhile, jump out of the hot pool and into the cold pool.  My colleagues were too apprehensive to do it, but crazy ol’ me did just for fun.  It felt great!  Don’t be afraid to go from hot to cold water.  It feels very refreshing.  After soaking in the pool, you dry off and put on your bath clothes.  The oversized gray clothing is made of breathable cotton, and you can relax barefooted in them as long as you’d like.  We ordered some shigae (식혜), a rice dessert soup, and relaxed and chatted in the oxygen room.  I don’t know if I was breathing pure oxygen, but it felt great.  I checked out the cold room, a frigid room, and the very hot sauna.  I didn’t spend much time in either room.  It was great to chat and relax with friends at the bath house.  I feel refreshed—just in time to head to bed.  I will sleep very well tonight!

In technology news, Adobe Systems announced that it will acquire Macromedia for $3.4 billion.  Adobe makes a variety of software products, most notably Acrobat.  Macromedia is best known for DreamWeaver, a Web design program, and Flash, a program for making dynamic online content and animated graphics.  I think it’s an interesting move by Adobe, because the two companies’ product lines do not overlap.  They also may not be compatible.  It remains to be seen if the merger will work, but it will create a strong rival to Microsoft.  Adobe’s focus is on digital documents, which is relatively static content, and Macromedia’s focus is on dynamic content.  I personally think Adobe may have been better off moving in another direction such as merging with Quicken, the financial management and tax software maker.  I believe that Adobe would find more crossover and synergies with Quicken than with Adobe.  Adobe and Macromedia’s combine success remains to be seen.

Shincheon and dinner in Itaewon

This weekend was all about eating and merriment.  On Saturday I joined some friends for galbi barbeque in Shincheon, one of Seoul’s livelier club and noraebang (karaoke) districts.  One friend celebrated his birthday, and we toasted him with soju and beer over delicious grilled galbi, kimchi, rice, and side dishes.  Galbi (갈비), or Korean barbequed-style pork ribs, is one of Korea’s most popular dishes.  Galbi usually goes hand in hand with bulgogi, or barbequed beef.  We had a number of side dishes to choose from as well as a healthy helping of cabbage kimchi.  I discovered that grilled kimchi is absolutely delicious.  Someone told me that kimchi tastes really good if you put it on the grill for about half a minute.  I grilled both sides of the cabbage and tasted it.  You need to enjoy eating kimchi to appreciate the taste of grilled kimchi–if you do, you’ll love the taste of grilled kimchi.  The meal was one of the best I have eaten since I arrived in Korea.  I was hoping to lose weight while living abroad, but Korean food is much too delicious, and too many activities here seem to center around food.  After our meal we sang "Happy Birthday" to one of our friends and ate some tiramisu cake.  Fun was had by all.

After dinner we headed to Hongdae, another Seoul club district.  We went to M2, one of Seoul’s more popular nightclubs.  I met the manager, a Canadian chap from Victoria, British Columbia.  He’s been instrumental if giving the club a Western feel.  The staff was friendly and appeared to enjoy in the fun despite having to work.  We stayed for awhile, drinking and dancing.  We danced together in a big group.  We tried to invite some locals to join our circle, but no one took us up on our offer.  A couple Korean friends told me that this is because Koreans tend to spend time with friends they know well and are not as open to meeting strangers.  It could be that we were so obviously different as Westerners that we were almost misfits.  The Koreans there may have also been uncomfortable interacting in English.  They apparently assumed that we do not know Korean and that they will have to speak English.  I did have a chance to meet and speak in Korean with a couple of people, including a Korean guy whose English was very good.  Perhaps a nightclub is not the best place for striking up conversations, but it would have been fun to mingle with the locals.  As the club grew more and more crowded with Koreans, we decided to call it a night and went home. 

Tonight I joined a couple of colleagues and their spouses for a Korean dinner in Itaewon.  One colleague arrived from Beijing today and will be here for two weeks; the other I’ve met a couple of times since he arrived from Taipei.  Our dinner consisted primarily of banchan (반잔), or side dishes, and Korean tofu soup.  We drank makkoli (막고리), one of the few Korean alcohols I don’t really enjoy drinking.  (Makkoli is a milky, unprocessed rice alcohol with a bitter, acquired taste.  There are two types of people in this world–those who like drinking makkoli and those who do not)  I wasn’t very hungry and didn’t eat much tonight.  I’m happy to meet up with another colleague I knew while living in Washington, D.C.  He has been in Beijing with his wife since early last year.  We had a great time and enjoyed good conversation.  We sat on the floor on mats at a Korean-style table.  Unfortunately, the floor was heated, and it was much too hot for comfort.  I fidgeted the entire time, trying to cool my overheated legs and feet.  I added more mats, but it didn’t help.  I felt like I was sitting on a galbi grill!  Korean-style dining on a heated floor is usually a pleasant experience, but not tonight.

National pastime back in the Nation's Capital

Major League Baseball returned to Washington, D.C. for the first time in 34 years on Thursday evening as the Washington Nationals beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3.  President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch, the first pitch thrown at RFK Stadium since the Senators left for Texas in 1971.  After a 34-year hiatus, the nation’s pastime has been reincarnated in the nation’s capital in the form of the Washington Nationals, or Nats.  The Nationals, formerly the Montreal Expos, received a warm welcome from newly minted Washington fans.  I can’t go to a game yet because I’m in Seoul, but I would love to once I return to the D.C. area.  The last time I wrote about the Nats, D.C. Councilwoman Linda Cropp was holding up a stadium deal.  I’m glad she brokered a deal that brought the Nationals to D.C. and a new stadium.  I don’t generally support public funding for sports stadiums.  However, striking a stadium deal was preferable to reneging on a previous agreement.  (If you recall, Mayor Anthony Williams struck a deal with MLB last year to move the Expos to D.C.  Cropp nearly derailed it by trying to rewrite the deal to remove some key public funding.)  I plan to watch a Korean Baseball Organization game or two here in Seoul.  Still, I’m really looking forward to rooting for my newly adopted National League team.  I’m a big Seattle Mariners fan, but I won’t be able to see an M’s game in Seattle anytime soon.  The Nationals give me a team to root for while I live in the D.C. area.  I’m not really fond of D.C.’s other professional franchises, except perhaps D.C. United, the 2004 Major League Soccer champions.

 

I turned on the TV tonight and had to endure what seems like the umpteenth night in a row of Yankees-Red Sox baseball.  Enough already!  There are 28 other teams in the majors; it would be nice to see some other teams play for a change.  Now that the Sox are the champions and the Yankees have loaded up for yet another championship run, my heart just isn’t into baseball’s “hottest” rivalry.  I suspect I am not alone.  Both teams are 4-5 and currently cellar dwelling in the AL East.  I wouldn’t even mind watching a Pittsburgh-Milwaukee matchup over watching Yankee Gary Sheffield bum rush a Sox fan.  It seems as if every time a Yankee faces a Red Sox pitcher or hitter, their combined salaries exceed the entire payroll of the Kansas City Royals or Florida Marlins.  We all know they’re the best teams money can buy.  It was fun to root for the Sox when they were lovable losers; now they’ve joined the ranks of teams that try to buy championships. 

 

Speaking of competitions—tonight our team won second place in a trivia contest organized by our Association.  Another team previously won the competition three times in a row, and we were determined to defeat them.  Although we didn’t win this time, we put up a valiant fight.  The questions were very tricky, and some of them were quite obscure.  Hopefully next time we can bring home the “Golden Plate.”