You may notice that you can no longer see most of the photos on my blog. I accidentally made all the photos on my Flickr account private, which apparently gives them all a new URL and therefore breaks the links here...no way to correct it except go through and update all the links and probably it'll be hard to find out what the photos actually are...think I may just put this blog to sleep once and for all.
Looking out my window it looks like Spring is here but it certainly didn't feel like it today. Even had a bit of snow!
Spent New Year's Eve having dinner and drinks in Itaewon with a work colleague and his wife. We got to about 11:55am without thinking about New Year's but then some revelers came in and counted down. I'd liked to have gone to Jonggak again, but frankly last night it was just too damned cold!!
2009 has not been easy. We've been pretty busy at work but very unproductive...still got a couple of irons in the fire at the moment and with a bit of luck 2010 will see us turn the corner...
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to Jeju with some guys from work to climb Hallasan. I can recommend the trip but for god's sake don't do it like I did...let me give you a brief rundown and I'm sure you'll see why.
Friday: Depart Kimpo around 7:00pm and arrive in Jeju about an hour later. Drop bags at hotel and dash to the restaurant where people who took an earlier flight are already midway through dinner. Have three shots of soju as a punishment for being late. 
Unfortunately, the shots are taken from the shell of some sort of shellfish and prove to be almost doubles. Have a shedload of beer/soju boilermakers with the boss and other partners and finally get to eat some raw fish to soak up some of the alcohol. Escort a couple of junior staff who have passed out back to the hoteland then head back for some whiskey/beer boilermakers. Finally make it to bed just past 2am.
Saturday: Am awoken at 5:00am by my idiot roommate who thinks we are departming for Hallasan at 5:30am. The room is spinning and I feel like crap but I can't get back to sleep. Get up and take a shower and head downstairs for our 7:30am meeting. Glad to see there are quite a few who look a lot worse than I do. Indeed one colleague is retching in the bushes outside the hotel. We get on the coach and depart for the mountain. The driver is a maniac and does nothing to settle our stomachs. We arrive at the drop-off point, which is swathed in mist and start walking. Three of my colleagues puke their way through the first 500m and then give up and go back. They will crash at the hotel for a few hours and then fly back to Seoul early...
We make steady progress up the mountain (total round trip is about 20km) and are about 2km from the summit by 10:30am. We stop for a brunch of pot noodles and soju. Had been feeling better but I am not one for hair of the dog and suffer a mini-relapse. Take a 1 hour rest at this staging point and then strike out for the summit. By the time we reach the summit it has gone from being a sunny day to being swathed in cloud and blowing a gale. Due to the wind the cloud keeps coming and going so we take a few photos and start heading down. 
Get down about 5:00pm and get on the bus and go to a sauna. Spend 15 minutes in the ice bath and then go for dinner. Feel exhausted and really want some meat but end up having raw fish and soju again. Drink in the restaurant until 11pm whereupon our boss decides he'd like to go to karaoke at the Shilla 45 minutes away at the other end of the island. Pile in a taxi and drive down there. The boss walks in, orders some whiskey, lies down on the sofa and passes out. We drink a couple of boilermakers and sing a couple of songs and after about 90 minutes we get back in a taxi and head back to the hotel and go to sleep around 2:00am.
Sunday: Am awoken at 7:00am by someone asking if I want to go and eat intestine stew for breakfast. "Politely" decline and go back to sleep until 10am. Get up and head to the airport for my flight back to Seoul.
Eschewed the dangers of the Korean highway stem and took the subway down to Moran to attend the Seoul Air Show. The weather was warmer than two years ago but was kind of hazy and with a low sun it was difficult to see some of the performances...still snapped a couple of photos:
They had an A380 there and I was kind of annoyed that we contrived to miss its flying demonstration...
They had the usual assortment of fighter jets including the F15 Eagle
And the F16 Falcon
And of course an aerobatic team, the mysteriously named Black Eagles who were neither black, nor flying F15s...
I think this manoeuvre was called the Challenger...
Flying close together...
Doing their signature Top Gun move..."Watch the birdie"
Finally, preparing for some carpet-bombing...
I dsicovered this website that lets you calcualte how many flights you've taken, how far you've flown totally and approximately how long you've spent in the air. As oyu can see I've made quite a large contribution to global warming having flown (as of today) 199 times totalling 385,601 miles. That equates to flying round the world more than 15 times, 1.6 times to the moon or just 0.011% of the distance to Mars.
Some other stats:
Journey records (Miles & Flight time)
Longest LAX↔ICN, 5977, 12:27
Shortest NAN↔PTF (Fiji domestic), 16, 00:31
Average 1923, 04:19
Airport records
Northernmost CPH (Copenhagen, Denmark) (55.62°N 12.66°E)
Southernmost CHC (Christchurch, NZ) (43.49°S 172.53°E)
Westernmost HNL (Honolulu) (21.32°N 157.92°W)
Easternmost NAN (Fiji) (17.76°S 177.44°E)
Most Frequent Routes
LHR↔AMS 9 (London - Amsterdam)
LGW↔LYS 8 (London - Lyons, France)
AMS↔GMP 7 (Amsterdam - pre-Incheon Seoul)
AMS↔ICN 7 (Amserdam - Seoul)
LHR↔ICN 7 (London - Seoul)
PUS↔GMP 6 (Busan - Gimpo)
BRS↔AMS 6 (Bristol, UK - Amsterdam)
FRA↔ICN 5 (Frankfurt - Seoul)
LAX↔ICN 4 (Los Angeles - Seoul)
CJU↔GMP 4 (Jeju - Gimpo)
Most Frequent Airports
Incheon Intl (ICN) 41
Schiphol (AMS) 34
Gatwick (LGW) 29
Gimpo (GMP) 26
Heathrow (LHR) 25
RAAF East Sale, Australia (YMES) 14
Hong Kong Intl (HKG) 10
Frankfurt Main (FRA) 10
Los Angeles Intl (LAX) 10
Melbourne Intl (MEL) 8
Most Frequent Airlines
Unknown (All european charters) 33
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines 30
Royal Australian Air Force 24
Korean Air 18
Asiana Airlines 16
Lufthansa 12
China Airlines 7
Air France 5
Dan Air 4
British Airways 4
Top Routes by Cumulative Mileage
LHR↔ICN (London - Seoul) 38,514
AMS↔GMP (Amsterdam - Seoul) 37,205
AMS↔ICN (Amsterdam - Seoul) 37,170
FRA↔ICN (Frankfurt - Seoul) 26,530
LAX↔ICN (LA - Seoul) 23,908
AMS↔BKK (Amsterdam - Bangkok) 11,436
CDG↔ICN (Paris - Seoul) 11,086
LHR↔SFO (London - San Francisco) 10,700
MRU↔HKG (Mauritius - Hong Kong) 9,607
DXB↔ICN (Dubai - Seoul) 8,356
Top Airlines by Cumulative Mileage
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines 83,248
Asiana Airlines 58,855
Lufthansa 34,629
Korean Air 30,773
British Airways 17,875
China Airlines (Taiwan) 17,703
Royal Australian Air Force 13,850
US Airways 12,078
Air Mauritius 9,607
Emirates 8,356
A couple of things I should probably let you know about that happened while I wasn't blogging.
1. Daeguowlet started school...he enjoys it and seems to have made friends pretty easily. He's also already transferred schools beacause...
2. We moved house. We left the tranquil tree-lined avenues of Bangbae-dong and moved north of the river to the (formerly? seedy area near Wangsimni. It's closer to work but takes longer to commute. However, it is pretty close to the river, which means...
3. I've started exercising. I bought a bike and have started bombing up and down the bicycle paths along the Han. It's good to know that Korean cyclists are way better than Korean drivers. Only about 40% of cyclists are complete muppets.
4. Shortly after we moved house, Bailey, our cat disappeared. Most people think he ran away, but frankly that doesn't make any sense to me. I believe it would be 99% impossible for him to have run away from our apartment complex. Did one of our lovely new neighbours steal him? That also doesn't seem likely, since I don't think it was widely know that we had him. Alien abduction? Who was that said "Once you hae eliminated variosu possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how implausible, must be the truth (or words to that effect)...anyhow the truth is out there!!
5. I've started experimenting with my cooking. After realising that I'm now going to be in Korea for at least the next few years, I decided that if there are things I want to eat that aren't available then I shall just have to make them myself. So with the help of the internet I've started making things that I would just buy ready-made back home such as pork pies, crumpets, lemon curd, quiches, sausages and others. The only thing remaining is to figure out how to make my beloved Wensleydale cheese...
The Sydney International Food Festival is marketing the different cuisines with national flags designed using food representing each cuisine. Here is the Korean one:
Of course they're just exploiting what I did when I first made this blog 
Of course their's is made of real food (presumably) and mine is just a bunch of food photos photoshopped together but I still prefer mine...
You can see the remaining flags here.
