Another weekend, another day at work for Uncle Marmot.
On a positive note, I’ve finally switched my office computer to Ubuntu.
Anyway, discuss amongst yourselves.
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English Books on Korea... and More!
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Visit My Brother's Film Review Site
45 Comments
Though I have few gripes about life nowadays, I really hate the fact that if I try to arrange for someone to come over on a personal visit, if one does not book an expensive alleged first-class hotel like a Marriott, Intercontinental or Sheraton, almost every last hotel of a lesser rating will not rent for a longer stay of a week or so because they want to operate like a sleazy sex-pad where they can make money by renting out a room several times a day just for people screwing around. I found some hostel-style places in Seoul but they are pretty lousy.
It is really pathetic when people can not come to Korea and get reasonable lodging without paying exorbitant rates, simply because the entire country is a red-light district!
This is because you don’t know what you’re doing.
You ought to try the serviced-apartment places — like the Marriott Executive Apartments on Yoido; Ramada Suites City Center; the Somerset Palace; Fraser Suites and Fraser Place; Vabien I, II, or III; or even the odd-brand Korean places like Dormy in Seoul, Han Suites, Stay7 Residence, M Chereville, or Human Touch Ville (which does sound like a massage parlor). There are a bunch of others — do a Google search for “Korea serviced apartment” or check the hotel-consolidator websites like hotels.com or asiahotels.com.
All of these places are essentially officetels. The top places like Marriott are really plush (five-star hotel level), but when you get to the Vabiens and Dormy in Seoul the interior will very much resemble the officetel to which you’re accustomed. (Except clean and with first-rate appliances.) Much larger than a hotel room, with a small kitchen and a washing machine.
If you can’t find a place for W80-100,000 per day, you’re not looking hard enough. So-called “five-star” places should be attainable for less than W200,000 per day.
Has anyone other than me been unable to log-on to Stars & Stripes from their home??? Any suggestions???
I think it is interesting that Lee Myung-bak is the first Korean president born in Japan. Does anyone know if he speaks Japanese? Does he have any Zainichi relatives? Will his background somehow help him in connecting to the Japanese? Or does it invite any scorn? There is some debate already about whether he should be viewed as a (former) Zainichi.
Former Taiwan President Lee Tung-hui certainly used his Japan (university) connections to his advantage, even if he was restrained in traveling there while in office.
What’s wrong with the gay scene here? I mean, c’mon, there are more people in Seoul than in New York City, and yet, there’s only a smattering of places here and there!
What’s wrong is, as in Iran, there are no gays here.
Along with no gays there doesn’t seem to be any Christmas wrapping paper or accoutrements. There are plenty of large rolls for Valentines Day and rolls that say, “Congratulations”. The spirit of Christmas needs a defribulator here. It seems to be only a sales gimmick with few people actually celebrating it at home. Funny, with all the Christians and the way they dote on their children, I would think it would be well suited for this society.
They also call Santa Claus, “Grandfather Santa”. I wasn’t aware there was an heir to the Claus empire or that his heir had an heir.
Also, is it possible that there’s a store that allows you to buy more than a couple of bags of items and exit the store with access to a convenient cab. It’s certainly easy to get to the parking lot but, holy father Christmas, unless you have a car it sure doesn’t seem like they want your business.
#4,
That’s news to me. I knew that Hee Hoi Chang was born in what is now North Korea, but nothing about Lee being born in Japan.
PS. Hee being born in North Korea probably has something to do with the fact that the North Korean government hates him so much. His election would have delivered quite a blow to that old lie they tell their citizens about how former North Koreans being persecuted by the South Korean government. Just imagine North Koreans’ reaction upon learning that one of them would have run the show in South Korea. I bet the North Korean government is happy he wasn’t elected.
@ #6
할아버지 can also be used to refer to an unrelated senior male, just like your mom’s friend is referred to as 이모. Even in the States, ‘Uncle ____’ (let’s say… Jack) doesn’t necessarily have to be your Uncle, as Robert in the original post demonstrates.
Early Merry Christmas, everyone!
Hey Bum,
That was actually a well stated clarification. Thanks.
Feliz Navidad, ya’ll.
Elgin, there are so many choices. What are you using to book?
http://www.hoteldc.com
or
http://www.koreahotels.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish
Actually, Elgin has put his finger on one of the Korean tourism industry’s biggest problems (as the KNTO acknowledges), i.e. the lack of mid-priced, English-speaking places to stay in Seoul.
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
The MPAA has banned this very powerful movie poster as being “not suitable for all ages.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/.....xi-poster/
So… who are you guys rooting for in the upcoming States’ election?
Thank you guys for the information and advice. Now I know more about this.
I had someone else do this for me and it seems that they searched for rooms costing no more than 40,000 won, thus turned only love hotels.
The asiahotels.com Brendon recommended and the hoteldc.com site are a very nice resource however the listed room rates at hoteldc.com — for residence hotels — have hidden costing such as the 21% tax and extras. Asiahotels.com and Koreahotels.net also has no rooms for less than 70,000 won, which doubles around Christmas and New Years.
I guess my friend needs to update their idea of how much rooms are in Seoul because anything cheaper is a love motel.
@14
Those three posters at the bottom makes really good argument on that.
Scary stuff…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi......1.450.jpg
The only reason there are clean and serviceable US$40/night rooms available in the United States is the low cost of land to put them on. Those motels are usually out at the edge of town, or on highway rest stops in sparsely-populated areas. Such locations are hardly available anywhere in or near Seoul.
Remember that a “small” urbanized area here in Korea will have a population of 300,000.
Anything in a city center, in the US or Korea, for US$100/night is a deal and a half. Looking at the KoreaHotels.net listings, your best bet looks to be the Co-Op Residence in Shinchon for US$114/night.
But that’s for an on-line booking. Use your shoe leather: Walk-up rates at the serviced-apartment places are usually extremely reasonable. I’ve done it from time to time, as I live catty-corner from the Vabien.
Brendon, that may be true on the east coast because I haven’t researched it. However, you can get a good room in San Diego or LA for forty a night. Particularly San Diego. Book a room at a Best Western in Chula Vista and you’re ten minutes from Petco Park which is downtown. Granted, it’s Tijuana del Norte, but it’s where I grew up.
#14, if you scroll down to the comments section you’ll see a guy complaining that the picture is an amalgam of two pictures photo-shopped together. I guess he’s somehow thinking that’s a rationalization for the MPAA banning the poster. You know, situations described in documentaries are not always photographed. It doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. Hell, some resort to artwork and graphics. What a narrow minded douche. He probably works for the MPAA.
I find it ironic how an aircraft will carry munitions
this week and musicians for the holidays the following
week. Munitions and musicians are really polar opposites.
i would like to see Mcain in the white house
but anyone would be better than HC
Anyone? John Kerry?
Edwards, Obama or Clinton for me. Gore would be better than any of them. McCain is okay just anyone but Guiliani!
“Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Towards Baby Girls”
Choe Sanghoon at the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....mp;emc=rss
People who rely on the media are always the last to know. I noticed this trend several years ago as I started seeing more and more upper middle class families with two daughters or even a girl only child.
A son’s a son till he takes a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter all of her life.
This study may explain why internet forums such as this one do not attract many women participants:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....195636.htm
#20,
Depends what the musicians sing and play and why.
#24,
The reporter needs to meet my wife’s friend. She and her husband are members of the most notorious Korean conservative Christian cult. Her husband and her in-laws keep pressuring her to have another kid, a boy this time (as if the sex of a child is determined by the mother). He won’t spend any money on their daughter, refusing to buy her clothes and toys to cause he mental anguish. She’s practically begging us for our son’s old clothes. Her mother-in-law won’t even acknowledge the existence of the daughter except when she wants to lecture her on the importance of having a son. It’s sad.
PS. The reporter doesn’t seem to want to explain why have a daughter is increasingly popular.
The headline and intro are misleading. It’s not that girls are popular. It’s that younger Koreans don’t care or want one of each. Despite anecdotes like your wife’s friend, the birth ratio of 108 boys: 100 girls speaks for itself. The natural ratio is about 105:100.
Hillary - rerun of Geraldine Ferraro?
Obama - Jessi Jackson?
Edward will be the democratic representative. But, Huckabee will defeat him.
Huckabee, the next president of the USA.
I say we nominate baduk as candidate for the 2012 Korean presidential elections.
Songtan1,
Same here. Do you have KT, per chance? It worked fine for me until about a month ago, then again for about three days a week ago or so, but since then, I can’t get to S&S from home. At my office, we have a commercial DSL line through the ISP that services Osan Air base and from there, S&S comes up with no problems. A couple of my friends are having the same problem and the KT technician told them that S&S is blocking the IPs.
Regarding the S&S IP blocking, one could try setting their DNS servers to:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
which is Open DNS, which may help. I have kornet and was able to pull up S&S as of now.
I have noted that someone at KT seems to play with their DNS servers so that some of my anti-spam software can no longer access the MX records offered through their servers, so as to report spam. KT is a hostile, spamer-friendly ISP still and has gotten more clever in covering their tracks.
Also, I notice the blurb on J.E. Hoover’s plans to suspend habeas corpus and arrest about 15,000 people back in 1950.
Here’s an interesting site. Great for when you’ve got time to kill at the office.
http://www.listverse.com
Day before Christmas here in Korea.
Merry Christmas to all commentators and posters in the Marmot’s Hole!
Never heard of “shopdropping”? Read here about the opposite of “shoplifting”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....0O2t1GSvUg
If the link doesn’t work, go to the NYT homepage and search for “Anarchists in the Aisles.”
Here’s something fun - see how you would look on the Simpsons - “Simpsonize” yourself -
http://www.simpsonizeme.com
So, any plans for a Marmot’s Hole end of the year gathering?
Beware of a telephone scam here in Korea that involves someone claiming to be a police detective investigating your possible involvement in a crime that involves crooked bank employees.
This morning I got a recorded message warming me that it was my second notice to report to the Seoul Prosecutor’s office. I was instructed to “press 9″ if I had any questions. I did press 9 and a man answered claiming to be a detective attached to the Seodaemun Police Station. He said my name and my banking account number was among more than 200 others that was discovered during an investigating a gang of scam artists that included two bank employees.
The “detective” told me that my bank account would be frozen at 2 p.m. and would remain frozen until they completed the investigation since I was also a suspect. When I asked how long that would take, he said two to three years. When I asked how I was supposed to live in the meantime, he said that I could transfer my money to a monitored government account. When I told him I would have to get some confirmation of all of this, he said that it was a secret investigation and that it I jeopardized it by discussing it with others, I could be arrested. He also said that phone was being monitered 24-hours a day. When I said that it all smelled fishy, he offered to my place and prove his credentials. Anyway, by then I was almost certain the guy was a scam artist, so I told him to go ahead an freeze my account.
After I hung up, I went to my bank to find out if there was any truth to what the guy was saying. The bank manager told me that it was just a scam and that a lot of people have been falling for it. I then called the Seodaemun Police Station and was also told that it was a scam.
Anyway, in case any of you get a similar recorded message here in Korea, just ignore it and hang up.
gbevers, did you get their caller ID information? If you supply that to the real Seodaemun police, it might be helpful.
gbevers,
i had a similar experience about two months ago. a woman called me from busan claiming she was a police officer investigating a crime. i was pretty blunt with her and told her to either come up to seoul and meet me or stop harrassing me as there didn’t seem to be any clear connection between the crime and me. she would not give me her precinct number or captain’s office number. i finally hung up on her and didn’t answer her calls. so she text messages me saying that she’s “very sorry to have lied to me” but she is not in fact a policewoman. however, “there has been a serious crime done to her friend” and they found my number in her phone. whatever.
so a few hours later, a guy calls me from “the busan police department” and wants to know who i am and how i’m involved. i tell him i’m not involved, i don’t know these people in busan and i’m a foreign person living in seoul. he says he’s sorry that everyone bothered me and hangs up. last i’ve heard of that motley crew.
although i have no idea about nor much interest in the motives behind the call, something did indeed smell fishy.
I’d be suspicious anytime you get an automated call like that - especially if the phone quality is poor, and it sounds as if its from overseas. And, it’s kind of odd for Police Detectives to be using an automated calling system to be calling suspects.
We’ve received a bunch of those, just today an automated call came about an overdue credit card for a type we don’t even own. Sometimes the caller’s Korean is even accented. Whatever you do, don’t provide any personal information to these gangs.
User-81 & Judge Judy,
The fake detective was hesitant about giving me a phone number, but he eventually gave me a 070 number, which he said was not his personal number, but was the number for the task force investigating that particular crime. A 070 number is an Internet phone number, I think.
I was told at the bank that these people were probably Korean-Chinese working out of China, but the guy on the phone told me that he would come and show me his credentials in person, so he must have been in Korea.
I did call the Seodaemun Police Station and told them what happened and said that the guy gave me a name and phone number, but they did not seem to be interested and just said that it was a scam. I assume the reason they were not interested in the name and phone numbers was that they felt that it would not be helpful.
These days many people seem desperate, so be on the lookout for scams. I thought this fake police detective scam was pretty good idea because many people seem reluctant to tell a police officer to go screw him- or herself.
gbevers, I was talking about caller ID information that appears on a cell phone and landline phones that are set up for it. Having the phone number the scammers are calling from could be more useful to the police than having the number they gave you to call back (which the police probably already have).
Smart scammers would block their number, but if they are calling to a landline, they might not consider that some people have phones that can show caller ID.
I would bet most of the scammers are calling through the internet from overseas.
Check out one of the future kids of Korea music, Go Youn Ha.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pJjiaGNjozg
Some canabis lovers, especially the ones of Canada, have struck me down on this, but I still believe that “illegal drugs in the US” are basically used by US musicians to enhance their performances.
Now imagine with me. Can a K-pop singer get away with lyrics like,
“sometimes my mind plays tricks on me”
“sometimes I give myself the creeps”
“am I just paranoid, or am I just stoned?”
No.
All hail Lt. Okamoto for having the wisdom to ban illegal drugs in South Korea. As a result of this, Korean society is better.
Drugs didn’t open my mind. Reading did.