The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Bukchon and Itaewon

Photos from this afternoon. First, a traditional house (Hanok) in the Bukchon district:

And a traditional set of steamed dumplings not far away:

And, finally, a traditional faux-Irish bar in Itaewon, the expatriate district:

Tonight, I am in search of galbi, and then I hope to stay awake until 10pm. Tomorrow, Panmunjom.

Not everything is cheaper

Remember how I said prices are pretty good in Korea? And remember how I said I forgot my Lonely Planet guide? Yeah, you can connect the dots here.

Lonely Planet: Seoul, December 2012 edition. On Amazon, $17.86. In Seoul, $28.40. That, folks, is a tax on my stupidity. Especially since the Kindle edition is $2.99 because I purchased the print edition. It might have made sense to buy that in Dallas, don't you think?

Also, Guinness is not cheap here at $10 per Imperial pint. That, folks, is an actual tax. At least there's no tipping in Korea.

Random observations from my first 15 hours in Korea

In no particular order:

  • These are the politest people I've ever met, and they all really want to speak English. It's like an Asian Toronto.
  • A single LED by the door with a motion sensor makes a lot of sense. A 5 cm step up just inside the door does not.
  • You can't turn off the automatic bidet; best find out how to turn its heater on ASAP.
  • Why get a hotel room when you can get a little studio apartment, complete with British-style washer-dryer by the sink, for $50 a night less? Across from a 7-11, even?
  • I know now why this trip was cheaper than going to London: it's colder here (-3°C) than back home (-1°C).
  • The won right now is 1,061 to the dollar at wholesale. That means, given a reasonable spread for retail, to convert won prices to dollar prices you just lop off three zeros.
  • Prices here are about the same as home for goods and a fraction for services. Express train from the airport? $8.50. Cup of coffee? $1.50. Flaming-hot ramen noodle cup from 7-11? $1.25.
  • Transitioning 11½ hours (India) is easier than transitioning 15 (here). I do not know why.
  • Being an American, it's completely unsurprising back home when someone who looks nothing like me speaks perfect English. This is normal; Americans look like everybody. But here, when someone who looks just like me doesn't speak a word of English, I find this bizarre. Note that I do not find this bizarre when traveling in Europe. I must think more about this.

I have obtained a map and the location of a large bookstore, so I will now explore the city.

Toronto bike-share program in trouble

First, housekeeping. After my last entry I managed to stay up for about 30 minutes, then slept for almost 7 hours. If you do the math you see that means I was up before 3am. So, even thought it's 1pm on Thanksgiving back home, I did some client work to clear it off my agenda for the rest of the week.

Now the point of this post:

Toronto’s plan to save Bixi transfers the bike-sharing program to the Toronto Parking Authority, turns over management to a Portland-based firm and uses money from Astral Media that was going to be spent on public toilets, the National Post has learned.

The deal, approved at a closed-door meeting of city council 10 days ago, will also see Toronto “eat” the $3.9-million in loan guarantees that the city gave to Bixi, owned by the City of Montreal, according to a source.

The city is negotiating with Portland-based Alta Bike Share, which manages Chicago's Divvy program, among others.

Seemed shorter on paper...

At this writing I'm just west of the Alexander Archipelago, with 7,093 km left from Dallas to Seoul. We started out at 10,999 km, so this is serious progress.

It turns out, this is the longest flight I've ever been on. I didn't realize that when I booked it; I thought Shanghai to O'Hare was longer. Well, it's farther: PVG-ORD is 11,355 km; DFW-ICN is "only" 11,005 km. But because I'm flying west, this flight will be nearly two hours longer than the one from Shanghai.

Fortunately for me (if not for the airline), the flight has a lot of empty seats. I'm in 33A and I have 33B for my stuff. The person in 32A has reclined all the way back so her seat is almost touching my nose, forcing me to put my laptop on the 33B tray table and type at a 45° angle.

Well, I've had nearly three hours of that, and I'm done. Time to pull out my backlog of This American Life episodes and close my eyes.

All right. It's 7am in Seoul. We land in nine hours...

Only a short flight to go

"Short" in geologic times. I'm at Dallas-Fort Worth, with about half an hour to start diagnosing a production issue. Then I'll be on a plane for about 14 hours.

Here's the plane:

You know how you always forget something when you travel? This time it was my guidebook. Lonely Planet Seoul does no good back home on my bookshelf.

Too much to do

With only a few hours to go before I jet out of Chicago, I'm squeezing in client work and organizing my apartment while on conference calls. Also, I'm sending these to my Kindle:

Back to debugging...

Chicago transit notes

After a year, the Wells Street bridge has reopened:

Just before 6:15 a.m., construction workers in reflective vests and hard hats dragged orange traffic barrels to the sidewalk, clearing the traffic lanes for the first time since last November.

Moments later, the first person crossed the bridge: Bike messenger Lionel Floyd. He pedaled south and appeared surprised to see a crowd of reporters waiting for him at Wacker Drive.

The $50 million reconstruction was aimed at extending the lifespan of the while maintaining its classic appearance. With the exception of two planned closures in this spring, CTA train service continued during the project.

Chicago infrastructure projects keep moving ahead. Last week Tribune transportation correspondent Jon Hilkevitch reported the Federal government may provide more funding for a $4 bn project to fix the north-side El:

That doesn't guarantee funding under the "new starts" grant program, but the transit administration allowed the CTA to apply because the Red-Purple Modernization project will add much-needed capacity and deliver more reliable service to the most heavily traveled CTA rail line, officials said.

The project will involve rebuilding the Red and Purple Line tracks, replacing stations and overhauling viaducts and the elevated embankment from north of Belmont through Evanston.

Various options and designs are under consideration and would cost between roughly $2 billion to more than $4 billion to engineer and construct, officials said.

The project is still in the planning phase.

Where I've been (corrected)

After some thought and reflection, I realize I've spent more time in some parts of North America than I remembered the other day:

As before, red are places I've been to but not stayed overnight; amber indicates at least one overnight; blue shows multiple visits; and green means I've lived, worked, or spent more than 30 aggregate days there.

The mapping applet is here.