Wally Nes’ Blog

We built a piece of furniture.

But before I go and show you the fruits of our efforts I’ll put in a little background info.

Korea’s national past-times are: Hiking, rotting in-hot-sauce-covered pieces of cabbage and Starcraft.
Note the absence of DIY.

There is NO Home Depot here. There’s little family run stores which do sell a variety of tools, pans,chicken wire, heaters/fans, dustbins and other general . . . . stuff-things. Now, these little stores do a nice job of getting you settled with generic tools, but they can’t get you stuff to use tools on. If you live in Seoul you’ll have at least 1 in walking distance. Probably 2. We have 3.

We asked around, weigooks, Koreans, locals, out-of-town-ers. There is nowhere in Korean that you can buy wood.
You ask a carpenter who will magic wood out of his ass and 3 days later will show up with a piece of furniture. If, then, you feel like you could do with an extra screw in there you go to your local family thingy and buy 2 screws and a screwdriver.
If I’m not mistaken that is how it works here.

Problem is: I don’t know any carpenters. And I don’t speak any Korean to communicate with the carpenter what I want, or even where I can find his office.

Now, there was an area in Seoul of interest. We’d walked along a canal near Euljiro some time ago and noticed a collection of these little family shops side by side. They lined the canal for a good couple of city blocks. So we planned an afternoon to explore these shops and see if we could find our lumber supplier there.

We started at Jongno 1 ga. Top left. We found our lumber, 5 hours later, at the bottom right (isn’t that how it always goes?). As a reference btw, east to west that runs 850 meters.

Before we found our wood, we’d found:

• Metal
• Glass
• Plastic
• Engravers
• Cloth
• Haberdasheries
• Fish
• Cooking supplies
• Baking supplies
• Printers
• Packagers
• Lights
• Electronics
• Screws
• Sewing machines
• Chairs
• Paper
• and much, much more

Aelle made a small photo report of this area, but she’ll need a couple more to capture all of it.

If, after graduation, I find myself with a lot of time on my hands I’ll try and map all these things out on the map above, post it on the internet and save a LOT of foreigners a lot of frustration.
Maybe some locals as well even.

You see, Korea is the country in East-Asia with the tallest people, but the furniture producers haven’t really picked up on this. My kitchen counter is 82 cm high. Working on that will get dishes washed and carrots chopped, but it also grows a mighty fine hernia. If you need any illustration of that, remember how you feel after a marathon dish-washing sessions and know that I’m a fair bit taller than you (If I’m not I really shouldn’t need to explain this problem, you live it every day).

Anyway, so the backstory is that I’m tall and wood is hard to find in Korea. Damn near took us 4 months to find the stuff. Damn. (2 days after purchasing wood I went back to the area for some specific tools and found that carpenter in a sidestreet off where we found our wood btw)

I’ve made furniture before so I was fairly confident in my abilities. Over this project I was to face 2 challenges. The first of my own choosing.

I wanted something pretty. NO screwholes and stuff. Smooth wood all the way.
This meant I worked with dowels and glue only. I suppose I could’ve cheated on the backboard, but who knows where that thing ends up, so I wanted to make sure it was pretty on all ends.

Here’s some of the pictures of the project.

The second challenge was inherent to the house we live in. Look at the last picture and see if you can spot it.
First, the distance at ground level between the wall and the cabinet is different. This is because the walls aren’t straight here. They’re about 3-4 degrees off level, they’re also warped (meaning curved), which will play a role when we put up shelves.
Second, note the gap between the cabinet and the table top on the right side. This is because the floors aren’t level either.

Have you ever tried making something straight when you can’t really trust your level? I stopped after the cabinet to get a mechanist square to try and contain all the little errors that had snuck into the design by using a spirit level on a non-level reference frame.

But there it is. 1000 mm high and a perfect height to do kitchen stuff on. We’re putting two shelves on that wall when we can get a [thingy which measures if there's current running through the wall, someone please tell me the name of this tool] to make sure I don’t screw up the wiring of the house putting these up.

For those of you that have really good memories may note a discrepancy between the second to last picture and one posted here.
For those of you that haven’t tasted our baked goods yet, we now have an oven. And about time it was, this keeps Raph out of trouble for hours at a time .

We combined the cabinet with solving a problem you might have noticed on an earlier reporting as well. This really is how wiring is done here. And the thing keeping the wires curled up like that are a hair-band and 2 clothing pins.

Before

After1

After2

Drilled a hole in the back of the cabinet, put the wifi box and the extension chord in the cabinet. Though I had to mount the router on the wall. It comes with a solid chord. The solid chord was, at some point presumably, pulled through the hole in the wall we have there and connected up on our roof to the city’s telecommunication grid. Obviously I wasn’t going to try that so with the help of two screws and some powertools that now hangs from the wall. There’s another extension chord behind the printer for easy access for the vacuum cleaner and my laptop

I still need to put the chord of the extension chord in a gutter of some kind. The cable swinging under the window there is for my laptop power. It’d be prettier if it was tucked away, but the nature of laptops is that they’re mobile. So I need something able to move more than something pretty.

Only serious problem remaining is that little rolled up chord on the printer there. Our printer came with a 1 meter USB cable. Didn’t quite cover all possibilities properly apparently. Easily fixed when next I go back to Euljiro though. I know exactly to go for a 3 meter A to B USB cable.

And if you’re lucky, I’ll draw it out and soon, so will you.

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Quote of the Day:

Some tool-men say “Why? “, this tool-man says “Why not? “                                              – Tim “the Toolman” Taylor
This tool-man’s wife says “Why me?                                                                                       – Jill Taylor

There’s so many things to take care of right now. The thesis is done.
I have a couple of days to wait for some feedback from one of my supervisors, but it’s done.

So now I’m in to details planning phase.
Where to go for family dinner
Where to go for drinks afterwards
What background to use in my presentation

And what to wear during my presentation. On my face, specifically.
You see, I don’t have a lot of room to play with here. I don’t have much on my head to vary. I am not allowed to show off any patterns I may or may not have groomed into other body hair masses. I have to wear a suit, and I don’t have the money to go all out there.

So, we have the Facial Hair Experiment.

The way this will work:
* You may put a vote on up to 3 hairstyles
* You may cast 1 veto vote
* Put your name with your vote (because I know some of you have less sense of style than me and your votes won’t count for much)
* Any pictures you have of other people with that hairstyle you want to liken me to or passionate reasoning may add points

Because I don’t want to make you all register to the blog to make sure you all only get one vote and all, this’ll ensure . . . something.

The contestants are:

A: The Full Face Beard

B: The Friendly Mutton Chops

C: The Mutton Chops

D: Sideburns

E: Goatee

F: The . . . . Evil . . . Something

G: The Simple Moustache

H: The Dread Pirate Roberts

I: The Clean Shave

Cast your votes . . . . .

. . . .

NOW!

P.S. the manner of my facial hair will inevitably be chosen by my regardless of vote outcome

For more pictures of the Facial Hair Experiment, go here. Now would probably also be a good time to point out the new folder of Autumn, which so far is completely unorganized.

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Quote of the day:

Don’t point that beard at me, it might go off

- Groucho Marx

Well, part 1 for me.

A year ago, Raph guest posted at Nancy the Gnomette about her (and therefore, my) Long Distance Relationship. This month, we hit our 3 year mark*, and only for the last 6 months have we living bearably close to one another.

So, now that we’re no longer a LDR, now what? When you move on to the next stage of your life and move in together? Is it that much more challenging when you have gotten used to a relationship dynamics when you don’t see each other that much?

The first big challenge is your expectations

In this field I was far more hung up on something than Raphaëlle. The relationship worked. But did it work despite the distance or because of the distance? There was only really one way to test that though. Of course, some people might think it wise to move closer together first, increase frequency of visits, duration of visits and so on. We? Well, we just moved in together.
And to be honest there were some tensions at first. We went from one extreme to the other. Before we could find our current apartment, we stayed in Raphaëlle’s company’s officetel – a single 15 square meters room where we slept, ate and worked. Together. 24 hours a day. We are both unapologetic introverts, and while we love each other dearly, spending that much time on top of each other was unnerving, to say the least. But no throats were ripped, no one ran back to the airport and we didn’t suddenly realize that we actually had no business being together at all.

It’s nice to know I didn’t waste 3 years of banging other girls for no good reason.

Money matters

We discussed it lengthily with our families and friends back at home before we moved, but couldn’t really find a satisfying role model around us. Though lots of examples of how not to do it. Neither of us felt comfortable having completely shared finances, but what are the alternatives when most of your expenses are shared, and when your income one-sided?

Raph moved to Seoul on her first real position, as opposed to living on grants or intern compensations. Whereas I always used to have a job and have been paying my own way for a fair few years I am now broke. Very broke. So our first budget to manage had output on both sides and on shared stuff and input was scarily unilateral. This meant that letting go of the idea of separate finances fast, obviously.

So, not only did we have to deal with how to get the money in to equal or supersede the money out, we also had to deal with whatever psycho-babble floats around regarding gender roles in income. I was now pretty much fully at the mercy of Raphaëlle for my food, drink, dry place to sleep and all other things where money is involved (and in today’s society, where isn’t it). We found out our inner demons chasing our ids and egos about. Our first months were tight but Raphaëlle could justify splurging on something she wanted every now and again but she had problems letting me do the same. And I had it confirmed that I really didn’t like being dependant on hand-outs.

Next to this, is of course the solid conviction that the man should provide the money and the woman is there for . . . well . . . I’m sure they’re useful for something. Now, I’m a modern enough man to not worry too much about having her earn more money than me, as I’m sure Raphaëlle hasn’t gone looking for someone with a bigger bankroll than hers just to fulfil some macho rule about how they’re supposed to earn more. But it’s been interesting changing the state of this condition from academic to reality, and Raph found out some preconceptions she had regarding the matter she wasn’t aware of before. For me? Having a sugar momma might sound nice if it’s for . . . well, the sugar, the icing, the extras. When you have to ask someone for money to buy tomatoes the shine soon fades.

Within 3 months we were settled in though. After the initial tightness money wasn’t as much of a problem and with a new rhythm we went about our lives. Life has been good and stable now for 3 months and hopefully, within a few months I can change the current status again when I get a job.

Now, a relationship is between two people. People tend to be individuals, which only partly conform to gender stereotypes. Here’s some nasty surprises: I was looking forward to the same game I’ve played for years regarding cleaning the apartment. She would be more about the cleanliness and I’d try to get away with doing as little as possible. I’m not the slob in this relationship, that was a surprise. (Not that Raph is, it’s just fairly unusual for me not to be)
The other is that I wouldn’t give Raphaëlle free range to paint our walls blue. Go figure. I may not know art, but I know what I’d run away from screaming.

Life rhythms

So we spent 2.5 years of our relationship living apart. One of the things Raph mentioned in that guest post was to develop your own life independent of your partner. You either succeeded in this or you’ve been living a lie. So here we are, two people in a relationship that are quite good at living our own life. Sure, the whole reason we moved in together is because we wanted to be together more. But you have to create some time apart. If nothing else, to provide dinner conversation. If you spend 100% of your time together, how many funny anecdotes will you have to share?
So we have different hobbies. Some of which can be done in the same room. We read the same books and different ones, we read the same sites and different ones, we watch some series together and other apart, we have the same friends and . . . well, we haven’t really developed a social life wide enough to truly have independent friends though there’s is already someone I meet on occasion that Raph really doesn’t remember.
Also, we know when to involve the other and when to go on our own merry way. I like to dance the night away and Raphaëlle just doesn’t. So when my path was crossed with free tickets to the Global Gathering (with special thanks to Wyatt and James) my leaving Raph alone to recover from a hard week by curling up in bed with a series to go party the night away instead was no worries. If we had morphed into some freaky Wally-Raph being neither of us would’ve had that.

One of the areas in our joint existence where we’re out of synch is travel. I have been in Korea for 7 months now and have yet to leave Seoul. I didn’t come here for the city, I can for the country (and the girl). Raph, on the other hand, spends a lot of her time travelling. To the country’s industrial capitals, so not a lot of touristing, enjoying the scenery or cultural experiences. Raph isn’t really keen on using the weekends to go out explore, and I really am.

There are a lot more things to be discussed on how the relationship has changed. But we’ll keep it at this

The Future

It’s uncertain. I am looking for a job here, but let’s face it, job markets right now are tight enough without the market being run in a language you don’t speak. We have discussed this at some length and if I were to find a really cool job in a different country it’d be an option to emigrate again. So what do we do with our apartment in the meantime? We decorate it. And within a significantly finite amount of time it may all be sold off for a 80% loss. I don’t really know if we should be investing in it, but Raphaëlle seems eager to do it and it means I get to play with powertools so . . . . I suppose it’s all good.

The future of us? Well, I don’t really think about it. And when I do Raph is in it.

* completely arbitrarily, we decided a posteriori that our relationship started during that trip to Kyoto.

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For Raph’s version, see here.

Sunday October 17th marked the end of my visa in Republic of Korea. Originally the plan had been to be finished with my thesis now, fly back, graduate and other things of that nature.
Instead, I was merely required to get the hell out of the country. Well, I was sorta expected to come back too. By Raph at least. And maybe Orion, if he’s capable of rational thought.

A bit of internet searching showed me that a flight to Fukuoka was the cheapest option. However, due to the expiration date of my credit card having come and gone I found myself without a means to book it. The internet did offer a place that took cash though. Off I went to a travel agent, outdated I know, but I had little choice. The travel agent knew of a different, even cheaper, destination as well.

Taiwan.
Or the Republic of China if you want to get semi-official about it. Semi-official seeing as how not everyone recognizes that the ROC isn’t still part of the PRC (amongst others: ALL of Europe). But ROC is what it says in my passport.

Anyway, seeing as how I’ve been to Fukuoka and had yet to set foot in Taiwan, Taiwan it was.

Now, people that are in communication with me will have heard me state on multiple occasions that I’m rather busy. Thesis and all (I have a date btw, I’ll get around to officializing an invitation on that soon enough). So I left to Taiwan with: No Lonely Planet or other travel guide and the name of 4 interesting tourist things on a piece of paper.
A good preparation is the cornerstone of a good holiday.

I knew they spoke . . . . Chinese. Hadn’t looked up if it was Mandarin or Cantonese. And let’s be honest, would it have made a difference either way? I can read it well enough, but speaking/understanding either wasn’t on the table anyway. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that their English seems to be at a level above the Koreans’ English. That would make things a lot easier.

I will leave you with my pictures as no adventures of note took place.

You can find my pictures here.

And I am aware that I took only a few pictures of the night market, which is a shame. So I’ll just point you here, or here. And please pay special attention to the “fruit”. If only to make sure you drink some of it when next you find yourself in Taiwan.

Oh well, I suppose most food there was kinda weird

Deep fried bread, with a centre of . . . snot and an ingredient of choice.

Enjoy

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Quote of the day:

Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it’s too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

- Peter’s Evil overlord list #20

30

Calories
Yen
Newton
Geiger
Knots
Ampere
Tex
Meters
Dpi
Stone
Radian
Planck lengths
Parsec
Acres
Denier
Pascal
Mole
Pyeong
Kittens
Ångström

No wait. That doesn’t sound right. Lemme . . . . lemme try again.

Pints?
Kilogram?

Those, at least are plausible. Yet, when I came to Korea I weighed in at 100 kilograms, so the loss of 70 seems excessive. 30 pints would indicate I contain 17 dm3[1]. Which, considering an average density of humans of 1.01 g/cm3[2] would mean I now weigh in at 170 kilograms. A gaining of 70 kilograms seems equally excessive.

No, no. Last Thursday it came to pass that I entered my 31st year on this celestial body.

And it was Glorious!

People always tell you that life doesn’t start till 30, but you don’t mind them. What a fool I was, dismissing my elders.
Now that I have joined them can I truly appreciate the wisdom that they, and in association, I, posses.
And with that wisdom, comes power. Glorious power, that I will use in great wisdom. Even as it now engulfs me, completes me and threatens to subdue me, I will be a benevolent wielder of power.
I will be a fair and just overlord. Crushing rebellions so that small groups may suffer, while sparing cities. Stamping out dissidents so individuals die in stead of demographics. I will spread my truth and allow all to kneel before me, even as I remove all other truths which may differ from mine as people fear what is different. And fear will lead to anger, hate and eventually suffering, as inevitably as the sun rises again. In spreading my truth I will remove that suffering. I will cover this world like a blanket, and people will be able to sleep soundly beneath me knowing that outside roam true believers, protecting me, and in extension, the people, from harm.
It will be a Glorious future, a future that is I.

But until the time that I can implement this future, I will use wisdoms with more immediate practical application to my advantage.

Combining Baz Luhrman’s “Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth”, “You are as old as you feel” and any of my friends’ assertions that my emotional development is equal to that of a 14 year old I will go forth and frolic some.
I will chase my dog through wood and up mountains, chase the frisbee over the ultimate field, dance in the clubs till they close, run through woods and fields wielding latex weaponry, travel to foreign countries and sneer at their food, sing, kayak, climb mountains, dive in seas, surf, run, slide, jump, eat, drink, love and generally fool around.

The world will be here to enslave lead when I get bored with that.

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If I decide to test a lieutenant’s loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

- Peter’s Evil Overlord list #71

Two weeks ago we tried to take the dog with us to see some of the palaces that Seoul offers.
Turns out they don’t allow dogs in palatial gardens. Apparently dog shit stinks.
Also, the garden next to the Palace was also a palatial garden. This made things tricky as we now had a dog in the middle of the city and nowhere for him to frolic.
And then on the way back we found out he gets car sick.
We managed to avoid paying a taxi surcharge as he had managed to throw up exclusively on me.
Huzzah . . . .

So . . . . we won’t be doing that anytime soon. I mean, the palatial gardens we could have suspected (and if we’d spoken Korean, probably have found out on the phone about). The garden next to that one was a bit of a bummer though. We do know, however, that the Olympic park has no such restrictions, so that’s on our to-visit list.

But first!
Time to introduce Orion to more of what Namsan park has to offer than just the little slice we’d been walking him in.

There’s many tales to tell of this epic hike (Namsan peak is 262 meters high), but as it’s been a week ago already I don’t recall most of the context of what I thought blogworthy last week. Instead I’ll show you pictures.

First are the competitors for picture postcard I may eventually send (No, they don’t have those here . . .  go figure)

While I did ask I couldn’t get the Korean dude to accept Orion needed to be in the picture. Or that he should hold the camera on it’s side so you can get the tower in better. This guy’s camera was worth at least 5 times what my shoddy camera is worth, but using it properly though . . .

The next picture captures quite nicely how important it is to undertake a hike such as this with only the best equipment you can find.

A picture of Korean cultural . . . . something

a picture to illustrate Orion’s popularity

There could have been other pictures that illustrated this, but the damn kids that kept trying to pet him kept blocking my shot. At one point 3 cameras tried to take pictures of him while Orion was desperately trying to get away from the 5 kids and 2 adults trying to pet him.

You can find the complete series here.

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And then this weekend we decided to ditch the dog entirely and see some of them traditional housings everyone is going on about.

To reach the traditional houses we had to pass it’s guardian.
This Korean  . . . dwarf

This lead us to a mighty doorway.

But instead of this doorway leading us to our prize we were led straight into the killing fields

Caught with our back against this mighty gate we now found ourselves on this open field. Providing a clear shot from all directions for anyone that would want to

expose one to a changing of the guard tourist attraction.

A more dire situation we had not yet found ourselves in.

Caught between people with glued on beards on one side

And people with feathers in their cap on the other

we were surely doomed.

Seconds crept by as we considered our position, seeing no way out. When other people with glued on beards, feathers in their cap and wielding aluminium foil halberd  came and challenged the standing order

We made the most of this distraction and headed for a small side gate at top speed, jostling and pushing tourist out of the way as we went.

The gate held freedom

Kicking up dirt while we rounded corners we soon left the guards far behind us, stumbling as they were over their silly robes.

We reached the street of most authenticity.

Here too, we found tourists though, so we proceeded with caution lest we anger one by blocking it’s photography. You wouldn’t like to see tourists angry . . .

Our goal reached we relaxed and let down our guard to enjoy some well earned hot beverages at the end of our quest.

Oh, what folly that was. To let our guard down so soon. Too soon.
For lurking around the corner was . . . .




THE SEOUL MUSEUM OF CHICKEN ART
OF DOOM!

And thus we leave our adventurers. Succumb to the horrors of contemplating their last discovery.
For is it a museum by chickens, concerning or featuring chickens. Is it culinary, expressionistic or Renaissance art. And . . . . most horrid of all. What manner of being could curate this.

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One ninja is an elite and adversary, multiple ninjas make a group of faceless and incompetent pawns.

- Inverse Ninja Law