Seoulscapade

Sharks on all sides in a feeding frenzy. Hardly high class at the moment.

Everything seemed to be going along fine. Trucks were constantly going in and out of the main entrance of the Haemoro construction site in Sangdo. Then last weekend, when going past on the bus, I noticed the main gates closed. That’s unusual, I thought. The explanation came when my wife went to a buyers and future residents meeting, called last night and attended by about 150 people.

Construction has halted indefinitely. Why? It comes down to a tangled mess of intrigue, incompetence, greed, and bullying. The problems are so numerous and complicated, I’m going to have a hard time explaining it all. But here goes.

Issue 1: Several groups/individuals are still living in the construction area. Some won’t move unless they are paid around $300,000 each. These little enclaves of greed include a kindergarten and a church. The irony of it is that they those two in particular aren’t moving out of the area or closing down. They will just relocate nearby and enjoy the profits from servicing high density apartment dwellers, once the apartments are built. But it seems like the profits can’t come soon enough. Money is also being asked for old squatter shacks on top of the back hill, which aren’t even a part of the construction site.

Issue 2: There is one hold-out in a house right at the main entrance. This person is separate from the other group and is also demanding money. Negotiations are in progress. The woman involved is apparently only the tenant, not the owner. I find it incredible that a mere tenant can hold everyone to ransom. Her house presently sits alone on a mound, almost totally overgrown with creepers, right where the main entrance road is supposed to be—a key position.

Issue 3: A water supply station is sitting on the hill above the construction site. We all know that. Everyone can see it. It’s a big round dome. However, the architects or whoever oversaw the planning of the site neglected to investigate what was under the ground. You’d think this would be a first priority. But perhaps in their own rapid rush to make money, it was too inconvenient to bother with. Now it emerges that huge pipes from the water supply station lie under the Haemoro construction site. These cannot be tampered with because they supply water to the whole Sangdo area. So, the solution? They need to take 3 months to install new pipes around the construction site and under a road. Consequently, tenders were, well, kind of put out for the job. Surprise, surprise, what are the choices? Hanjin, Shinwon and Daemyung. Daemyung is quoting around $600,000 higher than an average company would quote for the job. What a bunch of crooks.

Issue 4: Hanjin’s thuggery, part I. The larger size apartments have not sold well. And how could they, when the model house was shut down so quickly, giving the public little chance to learn about Haemoro. So, Hanjin has announced that it will reduce the price for these larger apartments. Now, in ordinary circumstances, this might mean that people in smaller apartments could perhaps upgrade with a higher mortgage, and then others in the smallest apartments could in turn upgrade to the mid-range ones. In this way everything could fill up. One flaw in this is that the downturn in the economy has made smaller apartments more popular. However, a worse flaw is that Hanjin has said it will not accept this upgrade option. It says everyone has to pay for the larger apartments collectively, at reduced prices. So, they will build the apartments, which will be empty, but we will have to pay for it. This is not the only evil Hanjin is perpetrating.

Issue 5: Hanjin’s thuggery, part II. Hanjin is insisting that it will only build it’s half of the construction site and be responsible for nothing else. The other half is Daemyung’s responsibility. However, no residents will want to live in the Daemyung side of the complex. Their apartment’s will probably be worth less on the market, regardless of whether they look the same as Hanjin’s. If it goes ahead under this arrangement, the lottery for apartment numbers will end up deciding who will have to live there.  Daemyung, rubbing its grubby little hands, will probably be more than happy with this arrangement.

Issue 6: Hanjin’s thuggery, part III. Hanjin is insisting that it wants control of the community management office. That of course will give it more power to do whatever it wants. The company has said it will send out its teams of consultants (henchmen) to persuade residents to go along with its plans. It has done it before, it says, and it will do it again. It sends these people out and it divides the community, undermining any solidarity or cohesion. It sounds more like the Mafia than a building company, doesn’t it?

Issue 7: The community management office consists of a bunch of buffoons who are probably in league with Daemyung. The head there is a smooth talking salesman, a smoke and mirrors man. He and his underlings have mismanaged everything from the beginning. Nothing is transparent. For example, they have no records of what they paid people in the area to leave. Cheap paper slips were used, not official documents. Who knows where money has been going? They also refuse to release community member contact details to anyone, so that news is not spread among buyers about what is going on. The only news source is the community website, but not everyone looks at this, especially not older buyers. Because they know no better, many buyers believe the lies spread by this salesman and his cronies.

Issue 8: Led by the nose by this salesman and the community management office is a stupid old bastard who is the spokesman or leader of the current area dwellers. The area people do whatever he says and he does what the community management office says. This has caused no end of wrong decisions and screw ups. Silly old fool.

The buyers community has put up with a lot over the years and it’s coming to a head now. The feeling is that things may have to go to court. That could take years. The community would like to get rid of Hanjin and Daemyung. This will be hard to do, but it is one path to take. What other options are there?

That’s what a big meeting to held soon will be about. The community has a lawyer who is caught up in the mess like the rest of us, and he will be recruited to help the fight. In addition, we may begin organizing protest rallies. This will be difficult in large numbers of at least more than 150 people because the contact details of all community members are known only to the community management office.

My opinion is to first get rid of the community management office and that old bastard patriarch of the area. Once control is wrestled from them, everyone can check the books, if any, and see what has really been going on. All community members can also be contacted and supplied the truth about everything.

Personally, I think the best thing would be to get rid of all the gangsters and crooks and start afresh, or at least attempt it.

Amazingly, we are actually better off than my wife’s sister’s family. Their building company, Shinwon, which is supposed to be building several apartment blocks alongside complex, is bankrupt! That means my sister-in-law and her family could be facing a sellout of the land. After all this time, after all the waiting, they may just end up getting money back and have no apartment.

And my wife? She’s angry but not worrying too much. She says it’ll be so good once it’s built that it’s worth persevering through the setbacks. Easier said than done for me.

One of the first places I visited when I arrived in Seoul years ago was Jongno Tower. The building is intriguing with its three pillared design, standing like some giant metallic invader out of a sci-fi movie.

I found out there was a restaurant up in its top section, so I immediately booked a table. The restaurant is called Top Cloud, and I celebrated my first pay check there one evening—to the tune of around $280 for dinner for two, if I remember rightly.

Yes, the place is pricey, but you’re paying for more than food: your investing in a spectacular downtown view through massive windows in setting like no other in Seoul. That’s what I said to myself to feel better about the restaurant bill.

Actually, if I had not been in such a celebratory mood, or had not wished to impress my female companion, I guess I could have simply had a coffee in the cafe beside the restaurant. A basic coffee there will only set you back $13 or so.

With the idea of getting my money’s worth out of my visit, I took a long time in the men’s room. I don’t mean for traditional reasons. It’s because it too had a scenic view. What I discovered in there was a whole window from floor to ceiling where you’d expect a wall to be.

One feels pretty exposed. But I found you can’t do your business while exposed or looking out at the view. That’s sectioned off. You can, however, stand at a circular washbasin in the middle of the room and take in the sites. At least the chuckle the place gave me helped eased the pain of what the evening cost me.

This leads me to Seoul Tower, pictured below, whose men’s room on the lower circular viewing deck goes one step further, as it is purpose designed for enjoying the view while letting it all hang out. It has actually become famous—a tourist destination in fact, as I learned on a recent visit to the tower.

I was only made aware of its fame after I happened to be standing outside of it recently and was approached by a woman with a proposition. No, it’s not what you think.

She was an Asian tourist, and she came up to me gushing something in broken English about a famous toilet. What she wanted me to do was take her camera inside the men’s and get a picture for her of the interior. Sure, I said, a little perplexed, and proceeded inside to see what she was raving on about.

Those urinals are each directly in front of their own window, overlooking the Seoul downtown area. You can even see the Jongno Tower from here. Now that’s what I call a convenience—your viewing pleasure need not be interrupted even if you have to relieve yourself! And it’s so inviting, isn’t it? You feel you just have to go.

What you see while having a pee.

No one was in there at the time, so when I came out I urged the woman tourist to duck in and have a good look for herself. A friend of hers had just joined her, so they both made a mad dash inside. I could hear the laughter and squeals of delight as I stood watch by the entry. It sounded like the men’s was giving them a greater thrill than the panorama of Seoul ever could!

It certainly made my day, seeing that famous men’s loo. Ironic, really, that I got to learn about it from a woman.

Yet again, primitive and barbaric behavior has been directed against innocent animals at a protest demonstration in Korea. In the picture above, pheasants are being slaughtered at a rally against Japan’s reiterated claims to territorial rights of Dokdo, a small group of rocky islands between Korea and Japan. Japan had published the claims in some teaching manuals.

Here’s how Al Jazeer reported the incident:

On Thursday protesters in Seoul staged a bloody demonstration outside the Japanese embassy, slaughtering live pheasants – Japan’s national bird – on the street.

. . .

Angry protesters battered, disembowelled and beheaded live pheasants, while dozens of war veterans in military fatigues shouted “Dokdo is our territory!” as they ate the birds’ internal organs and dripped blood on Japanese flags and on pictures of present and former Japanese leaders.

There were also banners that read “Stop violating our territorial sovereignty!” and “Japan must stop distortion of history”.

In April, Japan and South Korea held their first full-fledged bilateral summit in three years.

Ties were suspended after repeated visits by earlier Japanese leaders to a Tokyo shrine honouring the country’s war dead including convicted war criminals.

How pathetic. This does little to help Korea’s already poor standing in the world community in terms of its terrible animal welfare record. Nor does it help raise the consciousness of individual Koreans about the rights of animals, and most assuredly, a great deal needs to be done in that area.

Sections of the Korean community have a habit of slaughtering innocent animals at protest rallies. Apparently they do it to “express emotion.” I reported on another incident of this nature last year. At that incident, a young pig was suspended by ropes while someone hacked it to pieces with a knife—a most disgraceful, unmanly and cruel thing to do. No animal deserves a death like that. It did not cross the minds of these sadistic butchers that they were torturing to death what is essentially the child of another mammal.

It’s not emotion they are expressing at these protests, but their own backwardness and lack of intelligence. Animals sacrificed to “express emotion” are of course entirely innocent, with no connection at all to human affairs. And to abuse and exploit them as scapegoats is truly primitive. It’s the kind of thing ignorant peasants did two thousand years ago.

The grown men in the picture above should be ashamed of themselves.

Mission: Get officially registered as married and obtain a spousal F-2 visa in one day.

Forecast: Not a hope in hell.

Totally Useless Information from the Seoul Immigration website.

This is a basic rundown of how to go about getting officially married in Korea. Perhaps it will help someone.

Part I

I’ve had little to do with the Australian embassy since being in Korea. I emailed for information once. Its website is pretty basic. Here it is:

http://www.southkorea.embassy.gov.au/seol/consular.html

Yes, it really is spelt “seol” in the address above. Here was my first stop as an Aussie.

The site has a link to “Marriage overseas” information, but that just links to the Australian Foreign Affairs site. From here you can download the No Impediment to Marriage Form PDF file. Fill it out. It has two sections, one for the male and one for the female (I don’t think a same sex arrangement has official endorsement).

You then take this document to the embassy with both passports, yours and your intended’s. Also, make sure you take 100,000 WON. It is the required fee. That is so you can again experience getting ripped-off Australian style, while far from home.

When you go to the consular section, you’ll be greeted by a small room with what looks like a bullet proof cashier’s window. After handing over the forms and waiting for 20 minutes or so, you will get your No Impediment to Marriage document.

Along with that, you’ll get three Report and Certificate of Marriage forms. You have to fill out all of them and take them to a Gu office. Take your wife there too, as she’ll have to sign things and interpret for you.

My No Impediment to Marriage document was in English, and I was told that this would need to be translated for the Gu office. Well, my wife had to do that, but for the 100,000 WON I paid, I would have expected a translation included, and perhaps a small gift.

You read correctly: my wife had to write up a draft of an official document herself. That kind of makes a mockery of officialdom, document legalities, and due process, it would seem to me.

Part I Summary:

Things to take to the embassy:

1. 1 x No Impediment to Marriage document.
2. Both passports
3. 100,000 WON for the processing fee and for being ripped-off.

Receive back:

1. 1 x No Impediment to Marriage document
2. 3 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms

Part II

The next step is to go to the Gu office. In my case, because my wife could not get time off work and documents had to be filled out and translated, we could not do everything on the same day. We could have with use of a computer and printer (maybe at a PC room). And a Gu office is near the embassy in Jongno, so that wouldn’t have been a problem.

However, it had to be the next day for us, at Dajang Gu, and during my wife’s lunch break. I was horribly late to meet my wife at the Gu office because I got a bus going in the wrong direction. I was hot, bothered and sweating by the time I got there. The previous night, my wife had translated the No Impediment to Marriage document and we had filled out the three Report and Certificate of Marriage forms.

The Gu office also required their version of the Report and Certificate of Marriage form to be filled out and signed. So, they kept both language versions of the No Impediment to Marriage document and both language versions of the Report and Certificate of Marriage form.

They gave us back the two remaining Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, one of which did not get a Gu office logo imprint, nor an extra green stamp on the back. I don’t know why. I had actually operated the logo imprint machine for the Gu office girl because she didn’t have the strength. I thought I was imprinting all documents, but it seems only two had been place under the imprint plate, theirs and only one of my copies. This proved to be a problem later

Part II Summary:

Things to take to the Gu office:

1. No Impediment to Marriage forms, in two languages.
2. 3 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, all filled out.
3. 3,300 WON for the processing fee.

Receive back:

1. 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, stamped (and maybe imprinted with a logo)

Part III

Next, I made a dash back across town to the Australian embassy, where I presented the 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms. However, there was a problem. As mentioned, only one of my forms had been imprinted and had a green stamp on the back. But the consular office was used to having all forms appropriately stamped and imprinted.

I couldn’t believe it, as I had been the one to operate the logo imprint machine for the Gu office girl. When embassy girl told me of the problem, I actually requested the document so I could hold it up to the light to check it for myself.

My mind was sinking into dread at this point, as a man who loathes bureaucratic madness.

That wasn’t the only problem. We had not signed the forms with witnesses present. My wife said she’d do that at her workplace. But when she rang the Gu office beforehand, they had said they didn’t care about that, so it wasn’t done. The Gu office just wanted their Korean version signed while at the office.

The Australian consular attendant suggested that they could process the forms anyway, as long as I went back to the Gu office “one day” to get everything fully imprinted and stamped, etc. I was relieved and with renewed confidence even suggested she ring them. I wanted her to get their official approval and to know it was all above board. This was a mistake, as she heeded my advice—and it nearly worked against me.

After calling them, she seemed to forget her first suggestion, and began pushing the documents back at me so I could return to the Gu office. I was having none of that. I reminded her of her first idea, of simply processing them, and she went away to see if it would be all right. There are many shades of yes and no in Korea.

After some delay, she returned with the documents signed. This incident was a good lesson: when things are going your way, do not try to make a point or be officious–just keep your goddamn trap shut.

Part III Summary:

Take to the embassy:

1. 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, stamped by the Gu office.

Receive back:

1. 2 x Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, further signed and rubber stamped.

If you have reached this point, congratulations, you are now officially married. How romantic. The girl at the embassy congratulated me. She seem happier than I was at that point, with the whole thing being something of a burden.

Part IV

Once done at the embassy, I headed across town again to the Seoul Immigration Office. I had little hope of success.

I’ll explain by saying that the Seoul Immigration website is pretty useless—well, no, it’s more than that, it’s a piece of crap. It has things like flow charts when you click on “How to apply” links, like the one above, which basically tell you nothing.

In fact, if you change a few words, you could probably use any of the charts for any government process anywhere because they are so broad. Just pathetic.

I couldn’t even find a map on that site I could print off and give to a taxi driver. But what is worse I couldn’t find solid information about what I would need for an F-2 visa. I took everything I could and decided to wing it and at least find out what I needed.

The woman I encountered was an old style public servant. When she saw I did not have all the necessary documents, she did not roll her eyes at my ignorance but did everything else to convey the same message. I began to get tense. She notice that and modified her attitude. I then pointed to the printout I’d made of the Immigration website, with its useless information. In one part, it said this document was required:

Reference of a spouse with Korean nationality

I then spread my arms before her, palms upward, in supplication and bewilderment. I ask her, What does it mean? What is it? How is anyone supposed to know? Would anyone have a clue what to do to get it? She was unmoved.

She produced a document that was all in Korean, a document you obtain from the Immigration Office, by the way, not from the website. So naturally I would not have that document, nor have it filled out, prior to my first visit. I needed other documents, too, and so the woman wrote down what I needed, all in Korean. Instead of her explaining it to me, she said my wife could explain it. Once again, my wife was put in service as an aid to the government.

One thing I needed I could get from the Gu office across the road, she said. This was a useless exercise. I couldn’t get any “proof” I was married yet, as it would take 3 days to process the marriage documents across town at the other Gu office. I found that out after I had caused myself and the service people across the road a lot of embarrassment with communication problems and the silly request.

I had to return the next week, that is, after my wife obtained several other Gu office documents for me. But guess what, one of them wasn’t what they wanted, as my wife had misunderstood the scrawled note handed to me the week before. So, I had to return to the Gu office over the road again and get it from there. This time I was successful.

Once that was done, all documents were taken off me and I was told I’d have my passport and ID card in a week, delivered by post.

Part IV Summary:

Take to the Immigration Office:
1. Alien registration card
2. Passport (take your wife’s too just in case)
3. Embassy Report and Certificate of Marriage forms, signed and rubber stamped.
4. Gu Office document proving that the marriage is official.
5. Gu office document proving address of you and your wife (or just your wife?)
6. Gu office document proving your wife’s family status (or lineage or something like that)
7. Documents proving your financial viability, such as a proof of work document or a rental agreement or a bank statement
8. Reference of a spouse with Korean nationality (as mentioned above)
9. 60,000 WON (I was first told it was 50,000, but the next day it mysteriously went up) worth of Immigration Office stamps
10. 30,000 WON worth of Immigration Office stamps for a multi-entry visa.

Receive back:

1. Snide expressions mixed with impatience
2. A receipt if you nominate to have your passport posted to you, which you will have to pay for.

In conclusion, get your wife to ring the Immigration office to find out what documents you need. Make absolutely sure you have absolutely the right details of what you need to obtain. My final tip would be to avoid government bureaucracy as much as possible while in Korea.

I just came across news about a former court poet for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who escaped North Korea and has become a best-selling author in South Korea. The poet goes by the name of Jang Jin-sung, and his poems portray the horrors of poverty and hunger in North Korea.

I felt I have to spread the word about him because I have a loathing of that clown, Kim Jong-il, even though I am not Korean. Here’s what Jang Jin-sung was reported to have said about Kim Jong-il, according to the Asia Times.*

The first time I met Kim Jong-il, I felt overwhelmed with emotion…. But once I realized that he was the world’s richest king, ruling over the poorest country on the face of the Earth, that was a turning point.

To me, he was no longer a god, and I came to think that I could no longer live under that system. Preserving that regime while the people of North Korea are starving to death, that is an abomination.

There is no arguing with that. The volume of poetry Jang Jin-sung has published is called For 100 Won, My Daughter I Sell. Jang’s poem of the same title tells of the true story of a dying mother who sells her own daughter to a stranger for 100 won ($0.70 US cents), hoping it will help her child to survive. The mother then spends the money on a loaf of bread for the girl.

Here is the poem in translation:

Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood
“For 100 won, my daughter I sell”
Heavy medallion of sorrow
A cardboard around her neck she had hung
Next to her young daughter
Exhausted, in the midst of the market she stood

A deaf-mute the mother
She gazed down at the ground, just ignoring
The curses the people all threw
As they glared
At the mother who sold
Her motherhood, her own flesh and blood

Her tears dried up
Though her daughter, upon learning
Her mother would perish of a deadly disease
Had buried her face in the mother’s long skirt
And bellowed, and cried
But the mother stood still
And her lips only quivered

Unable she was to give thanks to the soldier
Who slipped a hundred won into her hand
As he uttered
“It is your motherhood,
And not the daughter I’m buying
She took the money, and ran

A mother she was,
And the 100 won she had taken
She spent on a loaf of wheat bread
Toward her daughter she ran
As fast as she could
And pressed the bread on the child’s lips
“Forgive me, my child”
In the midst of the market she stood
And she wailed.

Apparently, Jang witnessed this incident, as he describes:

It happened at a market in the Tongdaemun district of Pyongyang. A lot of people witnessed that tragic scene and cried that day,” he said.

As they watched her, she tried to appear unaffected in the beginning, but after she gave her daughter that mother’s parting gift, one last piece of bread, and as she wailed, all the onlookers broke into tears. Even now, my eyes still tear up when I think of that instant.

Another poem in his collection is “Our Food,” which presents the image of a kitchen where thick tree bark is ground with a hammer, then mixed with caustic soda and boiled.

Another poem, “The Tastiest Thing in the World,” was written in remembrance of Jang’s younger brother who died of starvation. The younger brother had said that the finest food he had eaten was the food in one of his dreams.

I look forward to the death of Kim Jong-il. Let’s hope North Korea is free soon.

* This post was based on work by Sookyung Lee for RFA’s Korean service. Korean service director: Kwang-chool Lee. Interview and poems translated by Grigore Scarlatoiu. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Like people in cultures everywhere, Koreans latch onto cute fads or focus on the trivial with a kind of in-joke mock seriousness. If some action is quirky and cute, like a dance style in a pop video or a mannerism from a soap opera, people begin to mimic it. It takes on a life of its own and is soon quoted in other media.

Recently a comedian wore a towel in a jim jill bang (spa house) in a funny way. He’d curved both ends in a circle and rolled them to the middle, leaving a gap to fit on his head, like a cap. When he wore it, it gave him a kind of Princess Leia look. Pretty soon, people were showing up everywhere on TV wearing towels the same way.

And here is another example of a quirky craze in Seoul, seen on the observation deck of Namson Seoul Tower. These are called “love locks,” and they’re just the kind of thing Koreans love—not just cute and quirky, but romantic, too.

The love lock idea is nothing new, but in recent times it has taken off around the world. The craze gained in popularity after lovers in Rome started hanging padlocks around a lamp post on Rome’s oldest bridge, the Ponte Milvio, in imitation of events in an Italian romance novel. That was over a year ago. Perhaps every country by now—probably every big city—has its own love lock locale.

In Seoul, it’s the Namsan Tower. Hundreds of people have bought up all kinds of padlocks, written messages on them and left them locked on the tower’s observation deck. Rome’s youth throw their keys in the river, so maybe at Namsan Tower lovers throw theirs over the side and down the hill.

The locks are so prolific now, it’s hard to get a good view overlooking Seoul, especially for shorter people. On the day I was there, so many people were in the way, I couldn’t get a long shot of the fencing. But trust me, it’s like this all the way around it.

Cute, quirky and romantic—that’s all you need to start a phenomenon in Korea.

Sangdo Haemoro: see more on the official Haemoro website here or for Sangdo here. (Last I looked all links to info on the Sangdo home page had been taken away, which makes me suspicious.)

It was time to put up or shut up this week. Our first payment and the signing of the Sangdo Haemoro contract was due within a three day window, or rather three and a half days. It was extended to include Saturday morning due to complaints from people who couldn’t get in during business hours. We were in this group, too.

Sunah had spent her lunchtime Friday at the bank and Gu office, obtaining necessary documents. Prior to that, I’d transferred twenty grand or thereabouts into her account–the first payment. She then transferred that to the appropriate Sangdo Haemoro account and obtained a certificate of proof.

The image above shows the building numbers and color coded buildings indicating apartment types. Our size is the 109 square metres type, of which there are three: the pink, the light blue and the red. Down below I’ve included the design types.

But before getting to them, here’s how the contract and mortgage signing and stamping went. At the showroom it thankfully wasn’t too crowded. We were given our contract folders along with a ticket to wait to see a contract person and mortgage person.

There were five contract types in all, each for a different kind of buyer. Those wanting to purchase on this day, for example, would get a contract with a buy price of around $700,000. Ours wasn’t so much because we bought into it early, and we’ve already paid a couple of 100 thousand.

After a short wait, we saw the contract guy. This part was quick. In the contract there were four or five sections. We only had to sign off on two sections because of unresolved issues. One of the unresolved issues is probably about the option of having balcony extensions or not.

To explain this I’ll show the 109.77 A design. Here’s how the layout looks.

The locations of this kind of apartment are coloured pink in the overhead image below. I quite like these apartments because they are on the corners of the central buildings, facing south-west.

Now, here is the same design in its “default” form, i.e. with balconies. You can see that having balconies can reduce actually living space considerably. Extending floors over balconies is usually an option people go for after construction, but Haemoro’s builders want to make extended floors the standard in all apartments, probably because it’s cheaper that way. They could also save a lot of money building it that way. However, many residences are not in favour. They want the option to decide later.

Personally, I plan to do half and half. We need somewhere decent for our plants and rabbits to live. Balconies are also nice to have for storage.

Anyway, back to the contract signing. The guy explained everything at super speed. Then Sunah used her stamp for signing, which is what Koreans use for official business. (Most people have a special stamp made of their name for such purposes.) Because I couldn’t understand Korean, it was all a blur. It took maybe 10 minutes.

Then we sat and waited to see a banker. Five of them were lined up at paper filled desks at the back of the room. All were constantly busy dealing with buyers. As soon as someone left, we were ushered to a desk.

Without ceremony, we were told that for our contract we could have a mortgage of around 70 million, which covers the first four and a half bulk payments on Haemoro. We then pay the remain few bulk payments ourselves. We could have nominated for the mortgage to take care of payments further ahead but I thought it was better to start now and buy some time to save and live more comfortably now.

Here’s how the guy went about it. Was covering the early lump sum payments how we wanted to do it? Yes. OK, show me your documents. Thank you. Good, now sign this form here, here, here and here. Good. Now, fill this out, here, here and here. Thanks. Sign this form, here, here and here. Great. Give me your stamp and I’ll stamp them. Thank you. Stamp, stamp, stamp and stamp. Thank you. Good bye. Next!

And with that we had a mortgage sorted out in about 15 minutes flat. Sometimes the guy was barely waiting for Sunah to finishing writing before snatching papers away. In fact, he had to give one back because she hadn’t quite completed something. Talk about fast!

I queried Sunah about whether we would have to wait for an approval of some kind. Silly me—of course not. I guess growing up under interminable bureaucratic processes and the anal-retentive inflexibility of Australian ways explains why I asked such a dumb question. The mortgage was ours. Done.

Here is the design for the 109.40 B apartment style:

Most 109 size apartments will be like this, as shown in the location guide below.

Here it is with the balconies still in place.

Finally, here is the 109.72 C style apartment:

Not many apartments will be like this.

Here’s how it’ll look with the balconies in.

After our mortgage was sorted, we went upstairs to look at what options were available. These were wall and floor “under coatings,” a refrigeration system and a ceiling air-con system. We didn’t really need any of them, but we stopped to look at the floor under coating options.

These are a cover that goes on over the cement surfaces of your apartment, before wallpaper and floor coverings are done. They are designed to protect people allergies or skin problems due to the building materials. The first covering system was a coating of charcoal for over a $1000. The second was a coating of mud, which was a bit more expensive at just over $2000. The mud is the kind that you see on jim jil bang (spa) walls.

Sunah liked the mud idea, so we signed up for the mud. With that, it was all finished. Now we just need the apartment built because so far all we own is air.

Above is an artist’s impression of our future home, the Sangdo Haemoro complex. We’ll end up in a building much like the one in the center. I suspect our view won’t be as spectacular. For one thing, the Namsan Tower in the background here is depicted at about twice its real size. The “apts” won’t be so elevated, either.

We went to see the “model” house on Sunday, but typically it’s not located near the construction site. It was across the river and up near Seoul Station.

After all the complaints we’d read, what we saw there wasn’t as bad as expected, at least not to me. The display apartments seemed much like others I’d seen. However, what is worrying people is that the materials featured in the display apartments may not be what we see some two and half years down the track. Sometimes building companies use inferior materials for the interior of the finished product. I’ll mention more on this later.

Here’s what greeted us when we got there.

Inside here are purpose built apartments, which will be torn down after the show period is over, though that building may stand for another company’s display later. There were three examples in all: 83, 109 and 142 square meter apartments. But these don’t reflect all the designs. For example, three different 109 square meter apartment types will be built, yet only one is shown in full mock up. People have to imagine the others.

Here, at the steps leading up to the entrance, it didn’t look like many people were around, which was a bit disheartening. Everyone hopes that people will be clambering to get a spot in the complex, thus raising its popularity and resale price.

These showroom presentations are where the “account” buyers have a chance to sign up for an apartment. The “account” is an official requirement for anyone who wants to purchase an apartment at a complex like ours at the showroom stage. If you have an account, you can put their name down, then wait until being selected as a buyer. Selection is usually by a kind of lottery. If you miss out, you just keep searching and put your name down for some other development, and so it goes on.

Of course, “account” buyers will be paying more than we did. We bought in early under a different system, so we didn’t need an “account.”

Perhaps some of these people below are “account” buyers, and perhaps some are like us, who have already paid a lump sum up front and are now getting an idea of what they paid for.

As soon as you walk into one of these places, you usually come to a large model of the finished development first, as you see above, surrounded by onlookers. There are buttons you can push that light up different sections on the model, grouped according to apartment size.

At this place, on the wall the left, was also a huge 3D map, with roads that lit up in different colors to convince people of the convenience of the location. At the back, under that bright advertisement right of centre, was the obligatory long row of desks fitted with computers and manned by salespeople.

I wanted to take a good picture of the model but was firmly told by a hostess that no pictures were allow. She also made it absolutely clear that no pictures were allowed of the apartments on show . . . So, here is a picture I took of what our apartment might look like.

Yes, I took in a little pocket camera with the intention of using it. Here you see part of the kitchen and the lounge area, as my wife stands look out for me on the left. Every apartment had a hostess or two to explain its features, and I guess to stop photographers like me.

Part of the reason they don’t want photographers might be because parts of the interior could change, and they don’t want people waving photos in their faces of what should have been. On the other hand, the brochure contained official pictures of some features, so I don’t know what the fuss was about.

You can see here that the designers have gone for black, gray, silver and white for their colour theme. It wasn’t exactly my thing, but we can always change what we don’t like later, and as I mentioned, it may not look exactly like this in the end. I hope the white fake-marble floor stays. I liked it’s clean, cool and white look.

Here you see the main bedroom, which is larger than the photos suggest with their narrow field of view.

The bedrooms—three in all—have wood floors. Hence, for the designers have incorporated brown tones into the colour scheme.

The bathroom in the main bedroom has a black, gray, silver and white colour scheme like the main living area.

This bathroom was a bit too small for my liking. It’s barely the same size as the other bathroom over near the entrance apartment’s entrance, which I wasn’t able to secretly photograph. That entrance bathroom was basically the same design but was done out in brown, black and white.

Since it will just be the two of us, we thought a second bathroom was a waste of space. I don’t think there is much that can be done about it, unless a lot of people complain, but I doubt many family minded people will.

In the kitchen, they had forms you could fill out with suggestions for improvements, etc. We noted a couple of things, like how the fridge space the designers allowed for did not seem deep enough for modern fridges, like the huge Klasse we currently own.

I couldn’t photograph the kitchen—always too many people. However, the above shot from the brochure shows the kitchen in the larger size apartment.

This kitchen is done by the number one company for kitchens in Korea, called Hansum. Whether that company will be involved in the final product is another area of contention. People worry that a different kitchen company will actually be used.

In contrast to the U design above, our kitchen may be of a long design, as you can see top of centre in the following floor plan.

The main bedroom is of course on the right. This is just one of three design types for the 109 square metre size.

Next, we went upstairs to see the smallest and largest apartment examples. At the top of the stairs, we inspected some open roof miniature models of most of the design types, which reminded me that we could end up in something with a quite different floor plan to the one above. There was also an open roof model of the sport and fitness centre that is going to be incorporated into the complex. Here’s what the front of that will look like.

Then we had a look at the small apartment. This is about the size of what we are living in at the moment at Prugio. It didn’t seem much smaller than the 109 square metre apartment we’d had just seen downstairs. One of the bathrooms was definitely bigger, too. Its colour theme was much the same.

The large apartment was another story.

This is the size everyone would have if they could afford it. While the small and medium apartments kind of look the same, the larger style apartment looks distinctly more expensive, with different paneling, fittings and tiles used, etc.

Of course, much of the decor you see in the picture is just for show. It turned me off, the fake opulence, the garish touches that just don’t belong in apartments even of that size—that remind you of tasteless rich people with no sense of proportion or subtlety. In the bedroom were fake-Victorian era, silvery coloured wood chairs, elsewhere tiny walls were decorated with highly ornate wall paper. I really hate that gaudy stuff. At least I won’t be living like that.

Here’s a vista looking down from near the back hills will be towards the main road.

I suspect the buildings won’t be that far apart. The impression below is probably a better representation of how close the buildings will be to each other. It shows an unnatural enlargement of the complex (probably to influence the subconscious of potential buyers) and where it’ll be in relation to the rest of Seoul.

At the moment, our present home is just past the bottom right corner of this image.

(Click for a larger view)

Tacky? Well, some of the sly presentation techniques and interior fittings were. But never you mind. Once the thing is built, if it’s done right, we should be sitting on a very lucrative piece of real estate.

Delays still plague the Hanjin project, angering all future residents involved, including us. People were supposed to begin making payments back in February, but without resolutions, no one is parting with a cent, or rather won. However, as shown below, the site is now being cleared.

The main company, Hanjin, is blamed for not solving problems, for being too passive in its dealings. My guess is that as big company, it can afford to wait things out.

The other smaller building company involved is held in disdain for a range of problems. Its name is Daemyung. This company has a shady reputation and is low down on the construction companies hierarchy list. One debate going on is what brand name will be attached to the apartment complex, and no one wants Daemyung’s brand name, which is Luceen. It will lower the value of everything. We all want the Hanjin name.

Some clearing work at last (shot taken from the hill at the back of the site. . . Click for a bigger view).

The next trouble maker is some greedy old bastard with a large stake of property, who is supposed to be one of our community’s leaders but is really a snake in the grass. He’s got his own interests at heart and nothing else. What he’s been doing is rubber stamping everything that comes his way, such as the construction materials to use, without consulting anyone.

The old bastard’s interest is in getting the complex built, making a pile of money, and getting the hell out. People have even given him the nickname of some kind of bird that flies off free from everything. At the moment, the community is trying to do something about making him responsible after things are built, so that he can’t just fly off and leave a trail of damage behind. Rotten old bastard.

Responsibility is a problem with projects like this. Once things are built, everything becomes the community’s burden. It’s too late if the building company or anyone else has pulled a fast one. That’s just how the rules are. So, in the initial stages, everyone is trying squeeze what they can out of the deal. Hence, no one is paying anything until design and materials issues are sorted out.

A view looking south-east towards Soongshil University (Click for a bigger view).

The latest of the design complaints is that the kitchen is old-fashioned. You cannot have that in a newly built apartment because it will automatically devalue property, just like the wrong brand name will. Korean buyers are very savvy on such matters. The look of the kitchen was discovered by people visiting the apartment model house building, which is not officially open but they were allowed in to see what is happening.

It’s the same old same old for us: more delays. However, it was heartening to see clearing work being done on site, even on a public holiday.

Another point of interest discovered on our walk around the site was that yet another small project has started nearby, to the south, and Hanjin apparently has something to do with that. That means this area is going to be dense with apartment blocks.

OK, here’s some explanation to the following. I’ve traveled a bit and have put up with what most have to while traveling without a fuss. But everyone has their limits and when you stand back and take a cold hard look at it, some things about traveling really suck.

Why I became so annoyed about what people commonly put up with is perhaps because I’ve been spoiled by the Korea’s excellent transport systems–far superior to those of Europe. This discrepancy, and the fact that I’m less tolerant than I used to be, has compelled to write of the following ordeal.

To start our 2 week vacation to the south of France in January, 2008, we had to endure a 10-12 hour flight to Paris, then transfer to a 1.3 hour flight to Nice, which was delayed for another couple of hours. It was wearying as you can imagine.

Livestock Conditions

I was dreading Flight AF 267 from Incheon to Paris because I knew it’d be grueling. As it turn out, it was, with additional unforeseen trials adding to the hardship.

The Boeing 777 used for this flight had a seating arrangement installed for economy that borders on the inhuman. I mean, I’m strongly against the appalling confinements livestock suffer, and in all fairness I also object to such conditions being applied to humans.  It was like a kind of torture and patently not suitable for 10-12 hour flights. I really think flight seating measurements should be looked into because I swear the airlines, or Air France at least, are shrinking them centimetre by centimetre each year, on the sly.

I am not a large person at just 77 kgs and I’m under 6 feet tall, but what I was expected to fit into gave me practically no moving space at all. It was similar, I guess, to what sows sufferer in factory farm gestation crates, which is torture. I find it hard to believe that anyone else could find this restricted space acceptable after paying so much for an airline ticket. Why do people put up with it?

I had to get out to stretch at one point and upon my return, while standing in the aisle, I was taken aback by the space I was expected to fit in. Just seeing it from that angle, I just couldn’t believe it. I stood there kind of stunned. I actually went and inspected other rows to check that my seating was not worse then everyone else’s.

The Three Little Pigs

As if the cramped quarters weren’t bad enough, we had what can only be described as inconsiderate arseholes sitting in front of us, who henceforth shall be known as the three little pigs. The pigs were French, by the way, not Korean. As soon as they sat down they inclined their seats as far back as they would go, and that’s how they stayed for the duration of the flight. That reduced my space considerably. Sometimes the guy in front of my was bouncing hard on his seat as if to try and force it back further. Unbelievable. It took a lot of restraint to keep my cool.

To be fair, the monk was not as bad, he actually raised his seat to eat meals. However, that was no help to us, since a fat lady was in front of my wife and the bouncer, a pompous prick with a nose like something on a gargoyle was in front me. Both of them were oblivious to any consideration towards us. As the flight began to drain our energies, we began to hate them.

It was also aggravating that the three little pigs had the seats by the exit door, so they had all the leg room they could want. And so, they spread themselves out in that direction as well by leaving items lying around their feet. They had to be asked several times by airline staff to pick up their things. But they pretty much ignored these directives.

In situations like this, I often give up because I don’t want to lower my standards to their level with petulant retaliations, and because I am sometimes benumbed by the sheer enormity of human stupidity and ignorance—so insurmountable that it is foolish to even bother to protest. It’s like when you a dealing with children, or even pigs, you indulge their lack of insight. It does not always do much to lessen the anger.

Double Standards by Air France

Does Air France use such a torturous seating arrangement because it’s a Korean flight and because there is a mistaken belief that Koreans are smaller than Caucasians? It is true that the Japanese are smaller on average than Caucasians, and it might have once been true of Koreans, but it is not true of the average Korean anymore. Air France needs to adjust its policy, not just for Caucasians like me flying out of Korea, but for Koreans, too.

On top of everything an incident occurred that could only be described as discrimination. My wife, who is Korean, was like me finding the confinement of the seating hard to cope with. By the way, she is somewhat smaller than me, and even she found it torturous. The woman in front of her ignored any protest. At one point, it got too much for my wife and she asked one of the stewards to get the person in front to put her seat up. The steward simply shrugged and did nothing. However, later, my wife noticed a steward asking a Korean passenger to put their seat up at the request of someone seated behind them.

Is there a special rule for French passengers and another rule for everyone else? It would seem so because, to add insult to injury, the rude people in front of us were not even made to put their seats up during meal service. Putting seats upright is usually a standard requirement on all airlines at meal times. Why does Air France not practice this policy? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to eat a meal when the person in front of you has the seat back as far as it will go?

The only advantage of nearly having my chest crush by the seat in front of me was that the video screen was now closer. This was useful because my video screen was tiny. As I later discovered, the screen sizes on seats were completely random as to who got a good screen and who didn’t. Some people had new larger screens while others like me, who presumably paid the same price for a ticket, got a tiny old fashion screen that was like watching an iPod. This only added to the resentment of the conditions I was expected to endure.

Why didn’t I put my seat back to give myself a few more inches? Because I hate to inconvenience the person behind me.

Vegetarian? Rabbit Food Will Do.

I was the subject of reverse discrimination, however, because I had pre-ordered a vegetarian meal. That meant I was served before everyone else. That part was fine. But what could the nation renowned for its rich cuisine deliver? For my main course, I was given salad. For my side dish, I was given yet another salad—the same kind of salad! One was big, the other was small. So, my meal mostly consisted of lettuce and and cherry tomatoes.

But I will give them credit where it was due. My meal was not delayed.

Delay After Delay

It was a great relief to get off that flight, but then we had to contend with Charles De Gaulle, which is a dump compared to Korea’s Inchean. We couldn’t see any signs for transfer to a domestic flight and had to face French information desk staff to get help. We were encouraged by not getting as much disdain as I expected. There was even a smile. I suspected something was wrong—or perhaps she was new.

We rushed to another terminal and got to the security check a couple of minutes before the close of boarding. We needn’t have worried about the time because the fight was delayed. And then as we were boarding, boarding was delayed because they wouldn’t open the plane door. Then on board the flight was delayed further while they moved cargo around for balance. I doubt such a delay would even happen in Korea—people wouldn’t stand for it.

By this time weariness was setting in, and so was body odor from stewing in one’s own juices for something like 14 hours. This plane wasn’t full, though. It was so empty, the first 10 rows had to move to the back to provide ballast for take off!

The aircraft was an Airbus A320, and this actually had leg room, by which I mean room for a pair of average legs plus some extra space for leg movement. This kind of aircraft would have been much better for the Seoul to Paris flight.

The flight to Nice was pretty quick and the airport wasn’t busy. Fortunately I had researched about getting into town, but I asked at the information desk anyway, who told me less than what I already knew. It’s funny, they’ll tell you to catch a bus at platform 5 but they will not tell you where platform 5 is. They will help you but only with the  minimum they can get away with. We couldn’t see any signs to direct us the the platform, and it was only be chance we eventually found it.

Getting Into Nice

To get into Nice from the airport’s Terminal 2 take bus 98. Pay the jaded driver around 4 Euros per person. Don’t bother to ask him for any help unless you can interpret grunts. He’ll give you a one day pass that is good for all bus routes.

Bus 98 does not have a map of its route anywhere. You don’t know where it will stop, and when it stops, you don’t know the name of the stop. This would never happen in Korea, not with such a pressing need for efficient mass movement. In France, if it’s only bedraggled tourists that will be faced with confusion, who gives a shit?

I had a map I’d printed off and an idea of where we were going in my head. Still, it was dark because of the delayed flight, which I hadn’t planned on, and I could not read any signs of significance. The scale threw me as well. Distances were smaller than expected. So, I didn’t have my bearings and wasn’t ready for our stop.

That was another bit of bad luck, as the bus got stuck in a main drag traffic jam before the next stop. Fortunately, our walk to the hotel didn’t take long because, as mentioned, distances were not great.

Salvation at the Roosevelt

At the Hotel Roosevelt, at the very doorstep of our destination, the whole dynamics of the journey changed. Here we were treated like humans. We were greeted in a most pleasant and helpful way by the desk clerk. The hotel foyer was simple, clean and neat and this was also reflected in the room. A kettle was even supplied, so we could have a welcome coffee, which you don’t often get these days.

What a relief it was to finally collapse on the bed, after what ended up being around 18 hours of uncomfortable travel. We were thoroughly exhausted.

Air France and Institutionalized Merde

My last word on this jaunt is that because Air France has a monopoly on direct flights to Paris from Korea, it possibly believes it can get away with anything. However, I suggest that Air France rethink their seating policies and upgrade their fleet. I certainly won’t be taking the direct route to Paris again on Air France until I hear that conditions are better.

To learn how to improve, Air France need only look and learn from the Koreans. The flight back from Paris was magical with Korean Air compared to the torture of getting there with Air France. With Korean Air, people in economy have more space. The video screens were the largest I had ever seen and the viewing selections the widest range I have ever seen. There must have been about 20 to 30 movies to watch. The staff ensures seats are upright at meal times and were courteous at all times.

I won’t go on because, quite frankly, what the French could learn from Koreans, in terms of customer service, transport and consideration of others, would fill an entire book.

It’s time for update on Panda and Monty, and for this episode of their adventures, I thought I’d focus on what they are munching on these days. I mainly thought of doing this to detail the treats they indulge, so that other people who have rabbits might try the same , if they don’t give them already. Rabbits don’t live that long; so, why not let them live it up while they can.

Here is what they have in their snack bowl, which is constantly topped up: Quaker Oats on one side and Vita pellets on the other. Panda and Monty would go through a good handful of oats a day. Panda is not keen on the hard pellets but loves the oats. The pellets are mainly enjoyed by Monty, who I think may have been fed similar as a young rabbit, or else he just likes crunchy food.

We order the pellets online, but the for the oats I need to make a special trip to one of the import stalls at the Namdaemoon Markets in central Seoul. I buy a couple of the biggest Quaker Oats containers they’ve got for around $10 each. I don’t just buy them for the rabbits, either. I mix Quaker Oats in with my cereal for breakfast everyday. Sometimes I’ll be eating my oats and cereal and the rabbits will be at their bowl eating theirs, so we’ll be all breakfasting on Quaker Oats at the same time.

Here is the next staple of their diet, a variety of fresh green leaves every morning and evening. Both Panda and Monty prefer these over other leafy greens like lettuce. They’ll only eat lettuce as a last resort. One good thing about Korean supermarkets is that they all have these assorted leaves. People use these with various meals, sometimes wrapping rice or cooked meat with sauce in them. I have them in the vegetarian sandwiches I make for lunch at work.

I couldn’t even begin to name all of the varieties here. All I know is that Panda really likes the fan-like white and purple colored ones.

When I pull the plastic bag full of these leaves from the fridge, Panda prances around much like a dog would, and attacks the leaves as soon as they are set down. Monty is less of an enthusiast. He nibbles on them later, but sparingly, usually after Panda has finished. Of course, sometimes he’ll snatch a leaf away from her, but most of the time, he shows only passing interest. Curiously, whenever you hand a leaf to him at head height, he’ll munch on it, no matter what kind of leaf.

I always leave a handful of alfalfa like this before I head off to work each day. They both go for the tasty soft leafy bits first and perhaps the dry stalks as an after-thought. Usually, I’m left with stalks spread around the floor, which they don’t touch after a day or two. We order this stuff online, and it usually comes to our door in a box packet with whatever else we ordered plus some freebies.

What we find, however, is that the supplied treats for rabbits are generally ignored by Panda and Monty. Only two things can give them bliss, and they expect these at a set time of day, without exception: dried pineapple and dried plum. How we arrived at the times for giving these treats I can’t recall. But now they are a fixed part of Panda and Monty’s daily routine.

A sliver each of dried pineapple like those above is greatly enjoyed by Panda and Monty each morning. Panda sometimes won’t really touch anything else until she’s had her sweet slice of pineapple, after which she may move onto some cool and refreshing leaves. The pair of them jocking for position at my legs when I’m about to pass them out, and I have to draw their attentions in different directions with a piece of pineapple in each hand, so that there isn’t any snatching.

Pineapple is their morning treat and plum is for the evening, around 10.30, although sometimes they’ll start milling around to make it clear they want their treat “now”—perhaps earlier at 10pm. We cut one of these moist plums up with scissors into strips. Monty will eat the most. He inhales them. Panda will be satisfied with perhaps two large strips. After that, any more gooey sweetness seems to be an overload. At the most, they’ll consume one and a half plums, and then show no further interest.

In sum, Panda and Monty’s diet is not really expensive. Some of the things they eat I buy anyway for my own diet. The dried fruits, which I don’t eat, are costly; however, they last a long time, so the cost is minimal because it is spread over a month or two.

Panda is the most attentive when it comes to food, and is ever alert for the sounds food preparation—the unscrewing of a plastic lid or the crackling of a plastic bag from the fridge. Around a scheduled treat time, she’ll be waiting in anticipation, while Monty is perhaps attacking furniture somewhere. At night, Panda is the one who’ll first start hanging around the kitchen, or us, urging us to quit dallying with those divine plums. Maybe she’s the smarter rabbit of the two, or perhaps, like most women, she’s just keener on the sweet things in life.

(Click for a larger view)

After numerous delays and the tediously long wait, trucks and earth moving equipment finally entered onto the Hanjin site this week. It’s all go, finally, with the estimated finish date for our new apartment being October, 2010.

The layout above is the very latest. The light blue buildings will have apartments of 32 pyeong, and so we’ll end up in one of those. I hope it will be in the south-west of the complex.

Those orange buildings along the north perimeter will be right next to the Shinwon complex, which is being built at the same time. Shinwon will consist of four tall buildings, taller than the Hanjin buildings, so they’ll tower over the expensive Hanjin apartments. People won’t be happy about that.

To get an idea of where it’s going to fit, here is a satellite image of the area. The white cross is about at the centre. Where the road ends in the layout above, at the bottom right, is where it meets the main road you see running from the top to the bottom right in the image below. In other words, tilt the top layout 90 degrees left, then shrink and centre it here on the white cross, and you can get any idea of where things go.

In the next image below, you can see where the site is in relation to the larger Seoul area. It’s well located on a main route that goes over the river, past Yongsan, and on into the downtown area. At the very bottom and middle of the following image is where Seoul National University is located.

Here is one of the preliminary apartment designs. Like the apartment buildings themselves, the final look of the apartments has not be fixed. They are likely to change as owners’ ideas or objections are taken into account. It all seems to be a very elastic arrangement.

Here are the three apartment designs for the same floor area (in light blue on the complex site plan) relevant to us. We’ll end up in one of three floor spaces.

I quite like the idea of plenty of balcony space. And on the other corner of other buildings there will probably be an apartment like this, or else like this but adjoining another of the same kind:

I like this style because you don’t have any common walls with neighbors, although according to the complex plan, only a couple of buildings for this apartment size will have these single apartment structures. This last one below is for the other main building type, where thankfully the master bedroom does not have a common wall.

Other designs exist for smaller and larger apartment sizes, but I haven’t seen them and they don’t apply to us anyway.

Our money has been tied up in this project throughout the delays, or should I say invested. Now, it’ll be further invested for three more years. The problem with this scenario is that we haven’t been able see those funds grow in a term deposit or something. It feels like it’s just in a vault somewhere, although our purchase will dramatically appreciate, one would hope, in the coming years.

We are not alone in our aggravation at this. It’s costing all buyers money because everyone has to rent longer than anticipated, waiting for their homes to be built.

In addition, because so much time has passed, building materials are now more expensive than ever. This means that the surplus we have to pay has increased to around $100, 000 or 100,000,000 won. That’s another problem with buying apartments this way—the unknown, variable extras.

Another extra, the one calculated according to how many “features” residents want built in, such as special landscaping, a swimming pool, hasn’t been decided upon yet. All these extra costs will end up in the mortgage, and in turn, they’ll be added onto the value of the property, so we won’t loose out. It’s just that the costs are more than they would have been, had things started earlier.

But what a relief to finally see something happening!

These jokers turned up the other day in front of Seoul National University’s modern Museum of Art. Here’s the official blurb for their antics:

Parfyme is an artist group consisting of Pelle Brage (b. 1978), Ebbe Dam Meinild (b.1980) & Laurids Sonne (b.1980). Parfyme has brought out several projects in public space within their own field of art, practical research and happenings. Highlighting the spontaneous action and using art as a tool for change, Parfyme uses their surroundings as playground for carrying out projects that covers everything from environmental reflections to thoughts on space and the way we use it and often presented with a great deal of humour.

The idea of this “installation” is very simple. The booth is the headquarters for the “artists” and the ideas boxes, complete with pens and paper, scattered about—you can see one above near the guy in the bumble-bee beanie—is their, umm, act. Actually, the idea boxes are basically the whole act, but it’s the public who are required to scribble down ideas and put them in the boxes, so the public, in effect, is doing the act, or rather the public is doing all of the thinking pertaining to the act. The best ideas were then pinned to the front of the booth, pictured below. The front of it is now covered in notepad papers with scrawls on them.

The “artists” only really had one idea. Build a booth and then just sit back and wait for the ideas of others to role in. Well, I’m going to fill out a slip of paper with my own idea and shove it in the box. It’ll go like this: “Why don’ t you bastards pack up and go home? Come back when you have actually cultivated a talent.”

You can just make out in the makeshift booth some sleeping bags. For a few nights, when it first “opened,” the jokers, or one of them at least, slept there. But nowadays the booth is completely empty. I guess the artists have left to perhaps to enjoy some warmer accommodation at nights.

One afternoon I passed the booth and there was a guy there, doing something at the little table they have to the right of the plastic booth. He was rushing about, busily walking to and fro, doing something at the table, with exacting purpose and speed. But I couldn’t see what he was trying to do, or what there was to really accomplish. Maybe he was trying to convey to observers the act of achievement in progress. It was like he was saying, “Look, I have a lot to do, and I’m really accomplishing something here.”

So, what the hell is this installation doing at MoA? It’s because the museum or gallery has an exhibition entitled “Temperance and Opulence – Art and Design works from Denmark,” and I presume these “happening” guests are part of it.

What a laugh to read that their “field of art” is “practical research and happenings.” That “field” would also describe just about anything anyone has ever done at anytime in the history of the human race. Yeah, they’ve pretty much got everything covered there, which means they can do anything and call it art. Nice strategy.

I can picture it now, how it was all conceived. Parfyme were getting pissed in a bar in Copenhagen after smoking some joints. Living off welfare was getting them down. They wanted to do something constructive with their lives. They wanted to travel to Asia.

They had received an art’s grant once for a “happening,” in which they sat in deck-chairs in a busy city mall, sun baking and sleeping, everyday for a week. It was called “Waking of the Oppressed,” and it was much celebrated among fellow installation artists around town, who were also sick of living off welfare, lounging around, and sleeping the daylight hours away.

After a few more Carlsbergs, and racking their brains to come up with the easiest and quickest piece of crap they could throw together to secure a grant, Parfyme hit on the idea that, since they were supported financially by others, why not get others to come up with their ideas as well? Then they could really sit back and relax. They drafted, on bar napkins, a cheap structure of wood and plastic they could nail together. Then they all went off to have another spliff to celebrate. And so it evolved from there.

These guys have worked out how to make life a permanent holiday. Well done!

I’ve mentioned these roving apartment-complex fairs before. They setup for a day or two, featuring stalls with things for the kitchen and domestic life in general, plus a large range of specialty and food outlets. This one was more elaborate than the previous ones I’d seen.

Among the extra goods on offer were wood carvings, as shown below (I wouldn’t mind one of those tables). Another stall was selling antiques, both furniture and ornaments, although I couldn’t see how you could trust the authenticity. Opposite the wood carvings were paintings of varying large sizes, perhaps 50 in all, lining the street.

Around the corner and up the hill there was the fish shop, featured below, selling average and exotic fish and small aquariums. This place was really popular with the kids and seemed to be doing brisk business. I was intrigued how everything needed for aquarium maintenance now was small and lightweight, like those black water filters you just sit on the edge on a tank. All the miniature decorations have become more elaborate than I recollect.

I spent some money at an incense stall. It was all very confusing because the saleswoman, who was dashing back and forward between shops while the incense saleswoman was off taking a break somewhere, didn’t know a word of English. I knew how much to pay but not how much to take. I just chose ten of what I wanted and paid the money. But the real saleswoman returned and was insisting I fill the bag with more. It seemed like I had to choose pairs. I just picking stuff while monitoring her facial expression for when to stop. I wasn’t really counting but got a lot more than what I thought was standard.

The obligatory pig on a spit.

I also bought some dried pear for the rabbits. They love that stuff. The stall I got that from had all sorts of dried goodies, maybe 30 or 40 varieties, just about any fruit you could think of.

One rainy Sunday afternoon we went to this cafe, though not for the coffee. You can get the usually assortment of overpriced coffees and beverages, if that’s what you want, but if you pay a little bit extra, you can also get your feet cleaned by doctor fish—little fish that chow down on the dead skin of your feet. Yummy!

We had a tub—one of three—opposite the couple above, over by the other window. It looks like it is designed to seat four, but as couples were the main clientèle, the monitor was delegating a tub per couple. After buying coffee, we had to wait about fifteen to twenty minutes for our turn. Buying a beverage is required. You can’t just walk in off the street to dip your feet. So, we paid 9, 800 won for two coffees and 2, 000 won each for fifteen minutes with the doctor fish.

Some people will definitely find this creepy. Actually, one of my wife’s friends found the sensation abhorrent, and has sworn she will never allow doctor fish to visit her again. It’s a little disconcerting at first, as it’s not what you would call ticklish, having a hundred or so little mouths chomping on your soles. Nonetheless, I got used to it, and I was actually disappointed when the time ran out because I obviously needed more treatment.

It’s a reciprocal relationship: people get their feet cleaned and the fish get a meal. You could argue that this is exploitation, but I couldn’t see how the fish would suffer. I presume at night that they are returned to a more natural environment. The tubs would have to be cleaned, wouldn’t they? I’d be interested to know what happens behind the scenes.

At least the fish seemed happy and healthy enough. One has to be thankful for a rare instance, when human beings are not subjecting exploited animals to torture and cruelty before an inevitable death—the usually practice, for example, in the meat industry.

I did notice a difference afterwards. Once I had put my shoes back on, it felt like I’d just walked on mildly hot sand or bitumen. Even now, hours later, my feet are kind of tingling, but not uncomfortably so. Their skin seems smoother too, unless I’m imagining it.

Other bigger cafes like this one—part of the same chain—can be found in Jongno and Sinchon. People refer to them as the Doctor Fish Cafe, or the Korean name of the cafe chain translates as Tree’s Shade Cafe, which is suggestive of a kind of shady resting spot. That idea, resting under a tree, is alluded to in the chain’s website name: http://www.restree.net. The site is all in Korean, though.

I might look into the exploitation side of it more, and if everything checks out, I’ll return for further treatment from the doctor fish. The way they were attacking me in great numbers did suggest that I was in need of it.