It takes all kinds! Clothes and getting home... (And last minute touring)
MP3 Clothing
I read an article this week about South Korea’s plan to export clothing designed to play mp3s. Some pieces will obviously have to be detached before washing. I wondered to myself (and now to you) after seeing so many different types of fashion here—very few resembling anything an American would typically be accustomed to, or wear, for that matter—how what I have nicknamed “Tablecloth Apparel” would be successfully mass-marketed. The mixing and matching I’ve seen is comparable to a curtain in an 80-year-old’s home... but then I remembered that down south, land of the free and the conservative, not many people get out of the box with their attire. Even the rest of the country, though, wouldn’t wear a lot of what I see on a daily basis. However, Americans on the whole tend to be less inclined than the rest of the world to get crazy with the wardrobe. So if you wire a shirt and sell it anywhere but the US, it may actually be a success. We shall see!
Bowling.
My last days are here! In fact, this will probably be my last blog from Seoul! In preparing for departure, many goodbyes must be said. This past weekend, a few of us attempted to do that with an afternoon of bowling! We located the bowling center in Hongdae, near Hongik University, but struck out (haha, pun intended) with it being an afternoon for league competition. So Amber, Sean, Ilya, Sam and I went down the street and sat around a coffee house for a few hours. We returned to the bowling center about 6pm and most of the diehards had cleared out. What we noticed about the ones remaining was a glove-type thing they were wearing—it was like an electronic bowling skill enhancement of sorts. Who knows what it was all about (You could say I’m not exactly current on bowling accessory technology)—but it apparently improves their abilities. Regardless, we rented our silly shoes, picked up some colorful balls, and hit two lanes. Amber and Sean’s friend came to meet us later, as did my friend Gus, who was celebrating work successes and thus brought beer. Amber and Sean finished pretty quickly—Sean has recently learned a “hook” which sort of sounds like a curve ball in bowling. Ilya smoked Sam and me—he was a champion with 5 strikes! Because this was the first time I have seen Ilya since he left for a semester in America (he’s Russian—I met he and Tamas, a Hungarian, my first weekend here) it was pretty good to get to hang out again. He and Sam conversed in Russian while the rest of us listened a bit, but stuck to our native languages.
63 building
After two hours at the lanes, Sam and I headed to the 63 building. Unlike much Korean architecture sort of slopped together in what is often a more functional and less aesthetic manner, this building isn’t entirely repulsive and is certainly the most distinctive element of Seoul’s skyline. A copper colored building that tapers at the top, its name comes from the number of floors it has... though 3 of them are basement. It was the only remaining item on my “must see” list, and of course I preferred to check it out after dark. I know most cities look alike when the sun is down, but one of my favorite things about or sites in this place is how beautiful the Han River looks at night. The top floor observation deck left no room for disappointment! You could see the entire city by walking around the top of this tourist attraction—it was so amazing. Those moments really take me back and make me think about how small I am in the grand scheme of things. Anything I worry about is nothing compared to all it takes to keep everything I’m looking at going—the lights, the cars, the boats, the businesses... I’m hardly a dot when you look at all of it. But we all are... so I guess we’re all necessary for the big picture, but it’s still humbling and incredible.
Flight restrictions.
And speaking of all get concerned about, I’ve checked the sites and passenger guidelines of the airlines I’m flying, and it appears that the repercussions of the recent terror attempts are resounding everywhere across the globe. It is really a pain because for a short trip when all I want to do is have a carry-on and no checked luggage, I’m going to have to check my bags anyway, in addition to going through the already time-consuming customs and immigration and all that jazz. And as annoying as it may be and as crunched as it makes my schedule, the truth is, I’m okay with it. The same way I thanked a police officer at a home football game after September 11th for searching my purse, I know that the restrictions are just the good having to suffer for the bad. I have nothing to hide, so if they want to search my bags inside and out to make sure I’m safe and so are the rest of the people on my flight, so be it. I’ll wait around a little longer, I’ll walk through the metal detector a few extra times, and I’ll get to the airport a bit earlier... If they weren’t going through all this rigmarole, I think we’d have an even bigger problem.
Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed
I read an article this week about South Korea’s plan to export clothing designed to play mp3s. Some pieces will obviously have to be detached before washing. I wondered to myself (and now to you) after seeing so many different types of fashion here—very few resembling anything an American would typically be accustomed to, or wear, for that matter—how what I have nicknamed “Tablecloth Apparel” would be successfully mass-marketed. The mixing and matching I’ve seen is comparable to a curtain in an 80-year-old’s home... but then I remembered that down south, land of the free and the conservative, not many people get out of the box with their attire. Even the rest of the country, though, wouldn’t wear a lot of what I see on a daily basis. However, Americans on the whole tend to be less inclined than the rest of the world to get crazy with the wardrobe. So if you wire a shirt and sell it anywhere but the US, it may actually be a success. We shall see!
Bowling.
My last days are here! In fact, this will probably be my last blog from Seoul! In preparing for departure, many goodbyes must be said. This past weekend, a few of us attempted to do that with an afternoon of bowling! We located the bowling center in Hongdae, near Hongik University, but struck out (haha, pun intended) with it being an afternoon for league competition. So Amber, Sean, Ilya, Sam and I went down the street and sat around a coffee house for a few hours. We returned to the bowling center about 6pm and most of the diehards had cleared out. What we noticed about the ones remaining was a glove-type thing they were wearing—it was like an electronic bowling skill enhancement of sorts. Who knows what it was all about (You could say I’m not exactly current on bowling accessory technology)—but it apparently improves their abilities. Regardless, we rented our silly shoes, picked up some colorful balls, and hit two lanes. Amber and Sean’s friend came to meet us later, as did my friend Gus, who was celebrating work successes and thus brought beer. Amber and Sean finished pretty quickly—Sean has recently learned a “hook” which sort of sounds like a curve ball in bowling. Ilya smoked Sam and me—he was a champion with 5 strikes! Because this was the first time I have seen Ilya since he left for a semester in America (he’s Russian—I met he and Tamas, a Hungarian, my first weekend here) it was pretty good to get to hang out again. He and Sam conversed in Russian while the rest of us listened a bit, but stuck to our native languages.
63 building
After two hours at the lanes, Sam and I headed to the 63 building. Unlike much Korean architecture sort of slopped together in what is often a more functional and less aesthetic manner, this building isn’t entirely repulsive and is certainly the most distinctive element of Seoul’s skyline. A copper colored building that tapers at the top, its name comes from the number of floors it has... though 3 of them are basement. It was the only remaining item on my “must see” list, and of course I preferred to check it out after dark. I know most cities look alike when the sun is down, but one of my favorite things about or sites in this place is how beautiful the Han River looks at night. The top floor observation deck left no room for disappointment! You could see the entire city by walking around the top of this tourist attraction—it was so amazing. Those moments really take me back and make me think about how small I am in the grand scheme of things. Anything I worry about is nothing compared to all it takes to keep everything I’m looking at going—the lights, the cars, the boats, the businesses... I’m hardly a dot when you look at all of it. But we all are... so I guess we’re all necessary for the big picture, but it’s still humbling and incredible.
Flight restrictions.
And speaking of all get concerned about, I’ve checked the sites and passenger guidelines of the airlines I’m flying, and it appears that the repercussions of the recent terror attempts are resounding everywhere across the globe. It is really a pain because for a short trip when all I want to do is have a carry-on and no checked luggage, I’m going to have to check my bags anyway, in addition to going through the already time-consuming customs and immigration and all that jazz. And as annoying as it may be and as crunched as it makes my schedule, the truth is, I’m okay with it. The same way I thanked a police officer at a home football game after September 11th for searching my purse, I know that the restrictions are just the good having to suffer for the bad. I have nothing to hide, so if they want to search my bags inside and out to make sure I’m safe and so are the rest of the people on my flight, so be it. I’ll wait around a little longer, I’ll walk through the metal detector a few extra times, and I’ll get to the airport a bit earlier... If they weren’t going through all this rigmarole, I think we’d have an even bigger problem.
Copyright 2006 Olivia R. Reed
posted by LSULiv | 5:43 PM
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