Wally Nes’ Blog

Hello Readers.

Been a while, hasn’t it.
Things have been slow, nothing noteworthy to report. Life is good, things are happening, just nothing to write on the internet about. In this age of Twitter this is a strange sentiment, I know.

My job search continues. If you know something, please let me know. And if you think just because it is in Venezuela I won’t be interested well . . . let me know anyway. As my good friend Marco reminded me Libya has some interesting positions open, high-end management even, but I’m afraid there’s some unfortunate history between me and certain Libyans that would make applying for those positions awkward.

In the midst of my frantic job search I was forced to take two weeks off to play shepherd to some clueless tourists.

After seeing Japan to visit me in 2008 and some visits to the States to visit the other child, South Korea was next on the destination list.
Here’s a tip to would-be parents. Make sure your kids leave to all sort of exotic locations so you have a good excuse to go there. To be honest it’s a bit of a shame marrying a French person binds you to your place of residence for the wedding ceremony, otherwise I’d have a nice excuse to invite people to say . . . Tahiti, Machu Pichu or maybe Kilimanjaro.

I’ll see about adding a “Where have I been in Korea” map under a link on the top right but I’ll just mention where we went for now and you’ll just have to google it if you want to know where on this peninsula that is.

If you don’t want to listen to where things are and just watch pictures you can find all uploaded ones here.

We visited some of the sights in Seoul and this is what they look like.

Cheonggyecheon

Jongmyo


Gyeongbokgung


Bukchon Hanok Village



Olympic Park

Before I post pictures of places outside of Seoul, try this for reference.

Outside of Seoul we went to Jeonju.
Jeonju is known for it’s Hanok Village. This is the second Hanok Village so far (and there’ll be a third), it stand for: “Traditional Village” or something.




Next were the Boseong Tea fields



Jinju Fortress where we were just a little bit too early for a nice festival


Busan








Next was Gyeongju, called museum without walls. It currently hosts the world culture expo.



Onwards to Haeinsa temple. Home of the Triptake Koreana, currently celebrating its Millenial.






Worthy of mention is that we spend 1 more day than planned due to running out of cash and country-side banks (even in high tourist areas) sucking balls. It took us 3 hours, 4 towns and 9 banks before we managed to extract cash at a 7/11 (and no, countryside don’t seem to have those either)
A long walk through the hills in Woraksan National Park

Which leaves most of the east coast with Seoraksan, Seokcho and others for next visit. A visit to the DMZ as well is something on every tourists must-do list of course.

My parents made it on to their plane and rest has returned to my house. Much to my dogs chagrin btw, his grandma was really spoiling him.

Yes, I know. Japan AGAIN.

Eugh. So Passé.

Anyway. We went back to Japan. 1 weeks worth of holiday. The top of my head did not approve. The rest of me was happy.

First of all, I’d like to dedicate this post to the heroes of the holiday

Two 200 yen umbrellas from the daiso.

Yes, the weather sucked and these things saved us from pneumonia. For 5 days straight.

First stop was Fukuoka. There’s a hydrofoil boat that takes us from Busan there in 3 hours and it’s quite a bit cheaper than flying. With the yen at the exchange rate what it currently is, that was a welcome money saver.
Not that much cheaper though, as it turned out. The tickets are cheap, but then they tax another 40% out of you for fuel and terminal use. Very classy.

Fukuoka is known for many things. Canal city is one, but I’d seen that in 2008 already. The street food ramen is another.

Little carts like these are all along the canals and on street corners.

And the food is not bad either. With this kind of cooking

Getting quite a varied clientèle.

We’d planned to spend some time on the beach. Found a pretty one btw.


Sadly, the places with roofs on them didn’t have this view.
But they were dry, so we forgive them.

Because Fukuoka wasn’t going to offer us anything with this weather we headed inland.

To Takachiho. The first thing we learned there was that our creation theories have been operating under a slight spelling error.

Cods . . . Not Gods. Silly us

The reason we came here was the gorge.

Good Visuals

And with added excitement built in.

That came down in front of our eyes.

After excitement comes zen

Back in Fukuoka we found this gem

A Belgian beer bar. That’s a Kwak, a Karmeliet, 3 different Chimays, Cuvee des Trolls, Delirium, St. Louis, Scotch Silly and a few more that probably deserve mention.
1 year of living in the country of Cass, Hite and Max will bring a man to pay the ridiculous prices they charge. But it was goooooood.

The next day was the first day of sunshine and the last day of our holiday.

Nokonoshima Island it right off the coast of Fukuoka. And it looks like this:

Aaaaaaaand that’s all we saw of this gorgeous island.
On that little slip of land at the end there we found a corpse.
That kind of took the rest of the day. Not the finding, the police things afterwards.

As mentioned, our last day. So yeah, we ended with a corpse.

I have pictures of that btw. Our Japanese is pretty good. 死んだ人を見つけました. But, we figured pictures might help relaying what’s happening.
Won’t post them though.
Probably . . . . wrong, or something.

================================================================================

Quote of the Day:

And if you are French – well, if the rest of the world persists in thinking you are amazing lovers, can you blame them for going along with the lie?

- BBC News

It’s spring in Korea. What does that mean?
Well, it generally means a raise in temperature and teenage hormones.

And flowers.

Japan is known for its sakura season. And its underdog sibling, the ume blossom season isn’t anything to sneeze at either. But when you think of Korea, flowers isn’t what come to mind. Mostly it’s that pesky neighbour of ours, and he doesn’t look anything as nice as what I’m posting in here.

As I’ve mentioned occasionally, I live next to Namsan park. Namsan park is . . . a park. Parks have flowers. So, to get down to it, these are some pictures taken on the mountain that shapes my calves.

Now, isn’t that beautiful?

Of course, can’t please some people.

The entire album can be viewed here.

For Raph that is, I was merely along for the ride.

The initial circumstances made that we were rather happy going to Japan.

We were leaving this (Seoul, -5 degrees)

going to this (Osaka, 10 degrees)

Unfortunately, it soon deteriorated into (Tokyo, -2 degrees)

which made us pretty much like

Anyway, the trip.

We popped over on monday. We woke up at 5:something (eugh) to get to the airport. If you connected what you saw in the first picture with the reality of airport management you’ll be able to postulate that 5:something could easily have been 6:something or even 7.

Arrival in Osaka followed eventually and I was certainly happy I had made dinner plans, not lunch plans as we’d never have made that.
I made dinner plans with my old 部長(I think I got that right, department head) from my time at Mitsubishi Electric and it was very nice catching up what has been going on in the lives of those people I shared 8 months with.

Minagawa-san, well aware of our dietary restriction, managed to snag a reservation at a specialized Tofu restaurant.

All of which was very tasty. There’s pictures of the façade of the restaurant here. I do not, however know exactly where it is. From my memory, honmachi subway station, exit 21, after 20 metres or so go right and follow the main road until you pass a temple on the right, right after go right and it should be on the corner. If not, ask the 7/11, you should be close enough.

The next day Raphaëlle spent 8 hours talking to clients. Actually talking, 2 meetings both with 3 presentations each she was quite hoarse when we met up for dinner. In all that time though she hadn’t gotten around to specifying the whole vegetarian thing.

So

If you walk away from laying the foundations for many 10s of thousands worth of business deals (and this one has great potential) and are led into a place were meals start at €100. Well, if you’re going to eat meat, why not eat Kobe beef.
I am very curious how raph will communicate this for the next trip in March/April.

Back to the non-chronological order that is this post. Before dinner I had some time to wander around Kobe while Raph talked.

So I got to see the earthquake memorial quay, specially not repaired to reflect the damage caused by the 1995 Earthquake.

Some random harbour wandering

China Town

And Kitano, the foreign section.

Yes, that’s in front of Oranda (Holland with Japanese accent) house.

After Kobe we took the late night shinkansen to Tokyo so we could take the early morning train to Hitachi which wouldn’t require another 5:something alarm clock.

The hotel in Ginza made for some nice midnight photography opportunities.

And I was able to learn something of the roots of a famous Japanese institution, yoshinoya.

Hitachi city is . . . well, living there made raph more adamant about living in a larger city. This year’s vulcanus-jin to Hitachi were this year’s biggest party animals. We mourn for you.

It is a pretty city though, it would be better if I’d taken this in Sakura season though. A 1.2 km long road lined with sakura trees.

Admittedly you do have to go and look for it.

The next day we were back in Tokyo. As Raph’s facebook said:

in Tokyo. Love Tokyo. Love it love it love it.

Where we learn that Raph really likes . . . Tokyo? However, Tokyo might have been sending negative messages regarding our visit.

So we were forced to stick to indoor activities. It actually brought to our attention how jaded we were with Tokyo. There was nothing so see. I’ve been to all of it. Especially indoor stuff. There’s a now Tokyo tower being built and I missed the gundam in Odaiba

which has already been decommissioned. While it is currently somewhere, I don’t know where. If it’s lucky, the gundam is touring the world.

But indoor things? Hadn’t been to the anime museum, the Helloo Kitty museum, the Ghibli museum I do still all have to see, but considering all that is Tokyo, that’s not a lot.

Speaking of Ghibli. After the daytime Yurikamome trip we saw this:

which, at set times of the day does this:

Being back in Tokyo, we had aimed to meet up with some of our old Vulcanus-jin. Unfortunately, what we’d not realized is that while there’s a fair few in Tokyo, they actually live in “Tokyo”. And “Tokyo” is kind of big.

Jorge, though, lives in the Roppongi hills and was available for some Izakaya visits. On friday together with a trainee at the Vulcanus EU-Japan coop center and on Saturday with Sato-san herself.

And on that fateful day we got this shot:

If you’re not a Vulcanus-jin, this probably doesn’t mean much to you. But that’s Sato-san in Purikura!!!!!!!!

Sunday, we headed back to Seoul. Just in time to see this:

And wasn’t that a nice sight to leave Japan with.

For any additional pictures of the trip click here.

===============================================================================

Quote of the Day:

Memories are what warm you up from the inside. But they’re also what tear you apart.

- Haruki Murakami

Two weeks ago I could be found on the south coast of South Korea.

The south coast is dotted with nice little seaside towns and beach colonies.
In January these towns are not as vibrant as they would be in summer.

Yeosu can’t really be called either though. It’s an industrial harbor, a great focus of Korea’s Chemical production capabilities. Not really a place where you’d go for a weekend getaway.

Yeosu itself is trying to change it’s image though with the 2012 world expo being hosted there. It’s got a few tourist attractions already, but the work for all the expo buildings and infra structure is still underway.

Raphaelle was in Yeosu for business reasons, all those chemical companies and needing valves and stuff. I wasn’t there for the world expo, so I spend my days walking Orion all over this town.

It’s pretty, certainly less ugly than some of the places I’ve been. I wouldn’t mind coming back here when it’s not freezing. Orion had a good time too. Better than me I’d say, though he did object to how we transported him over longer distances.

There were many pretty sea vistas to enjoy.

Cultural stuff

Look, there's culture behind my dog

And luckily, this far from Seoul the Architecture is completely new and exciting.

Orion may have been slightly humiliated being carted around as such, but he held his shit together seeing all this all week. Whereas my shit was runny and very, very frequent by the end of the week.

I enjoyed Yeosu, and I don’t think it’s anything to do with the place that I spent 6 days in bed afterwards. But maybe, next time, I’ll go to Busan instead.

The entire album is visible here.

=================================================================================

Quote of the day:

Look, there’s culture behind my doggy

- aelle

Those of you that check in regularly with my picture page will have noticed that there is a certain structure in it. Country first, sub-folder (city, occasion, etc) next with possible recurrences and pictures therein. While my country of residence has been South Korea for 8 months now the only subfolder I have had in Korea so far is Seoul.

That’s changed now.

Behold Yeosu!

Yeosu is a . . . .  industrial town on the south coast of South Korea. In the middle of winter it’s . . .  not touristy. I will write more of Yeosu some other time. For now, enjoy the pictures under the link earlier and I will add pictures every day I’m here. Well, maybe.

==========================================================

Quote of the day:

“The bad plowman quarrels with his ox”

- Korean proverb