Songdo, Incheon

The Incheon Free Economic Zone is located just South of Incheon proper. It is being developed to encourage international businesses to come to Korean by offering large tax breaks, subsidies and estate support. Development started in the mid 2000s and the final phase is planned to end in 2020.

Songdo International Business District, Songdo-dong, Songdo International City, Songdo New City, or just Songdo, is one of three districts inside the IFEZ. It’s impressive looking, with wide straight streets, modern building and clean surroundings. I’ve been here a few times before, but every time over a weekend. One thing that strikes me every time was how quiet it is there. It always feels like there's nothing happening there, like the only people there are curious visitors from other parts of the Gyeonggi-do. It is possible that weekdays are busier, but I've not been there during the week, so I can't be sure.

I went there a last weekend for the street racing that was mentioned in 10Mag, but there was no racing. Turns out it was canceled, because, you know, we are still being subjected to forced mourning over the sinking of the Saewol ferry. Let me just leave my opinion at that. I thought that since I was there already I might as well take a few photographs.

First up is a view over the canal running through Central Park.




Just out of view of the first photo, there are these two buildings. I haven't yet found any information on them though. They are interesting because no matter where you stand, some part of the building looks warped. This angle at which I took this photo shows the strangest view.




The Tri-Bowl Multiplex Cultural Center is a structure that is not easy to miss. Apparently there is art from the 1969 -1990 inside, but I was not able to go in. It might be because it was a Sunday. The only information I could find says that it is closed on Mondays only.






The North-East Asia Trade Tower, is apparently the worlds most expensive real estate development in the IFEZ. Well now. Why throw the word “world” in there when you are only talking about developments in Incheon. This is like saying the computer in my apartment is the worlds most expensive computer in my apartment. It means nothing, really.

A more meaningful piece of information is that it is 68 floors high, currently the highest building in Korea.



The race has been rescheduled to a bit later and I will try to get to it then to get an image or two.

Smart Cube Beam Thing

I was looking for a yeast to make Makgeolli with and thought I would try and see what 11st.co.kr would give up as a result. Instead of looking for the yeast, I saw this on the front page


It is an interesting little device and I can see it having some use, even if that us is extremely limited .

The fun part about the device was not the video though, or imagining a possible use to justify that price. Instead it was the images on the promotion page they use to show possible uses After watching the video I had a look at the images on the site that they use to show some of the possibilities.

Really? We’re going camping, and instead of taking a tablet or a decent projector, I’m going to run my phone dry on this? Never mind that we will have to hunch over the phone anyway just to hear the sounds.

Those children watching on the wall… just look at that terrible photoshop insertion of the product.

The man and his son sit in a huge arse room with a huge arse LCD TV and they go with a projector and bad sound? Yea, that is the way to use technology effectively.

The people go for a picnic on the Han river and they just happen to bring a big white screen, somthing, along to project the news, or whatever that is, onto the screen. Are they really the desperate for news?

The boy watching on the ceiling is nice though, but somehow I think he will quickly swap over to the phone itself when he realises that he has to hold the projector still the whole time. Since getting him to actually sleep in his bed is not a problem, why not spend a little bit more and buy him a tablet rather than this really limited use projector? THAT will keep him nice and awake at night.

Oh, and let’s not forget the completely stupid insertion of an unrelated pretty girl into the image above the two pricing options

Here be raccoons! (-like creatures)

Last night, while out in the park getting some exercise, I saw the strangest of things.

Out of the bushes just in front of me came something the size of a medium dog, or a very large cat. It was furry and round as anything and was making a line straight for a cat that is saw on the other side of a small bridge bridge.

My first reactions was “Man, that is one fat and furry cat!” but then I noticed it’s legs. They were covered in short fur and were very thin compared to the rest of the furball. Furry cats have furry legs as well and fat cats look fat all over. They don’t have skinny little legs.

Looking a bit closer to decided that I was looking at a raccoon. I had a good 30 seconds to look at it and I was fairly sure. A raccoon! This was my first time ever to see a raccoon! Only problem was that I had never heard of raccoons in Korea.

And I was right. There aren't raccoons in Korea. There are, however, Raccoon Dogs. These animals are part of the dog family of and is, interestingly, one of the earliest species to evolve from the common ancestor of all dogs.

It is called the Raccoon Dog because, you guessed it, it looks like a raccoon. No surprise that I thought i was looking at a raccoon then, is it. It is native to East Asia, although is was imported to Eastern Europe for it’s fur.

Its not often that you see interesting, and actual wild life in a densely populated and highly developed country like Korea. Who says working out in the park does not pay off?

Reaching for new heights

Two boys were monkeying around on the pull up bars. Heavens know why pull up bar even exist at school because no one would ever use then if it were not for days like these.

The little dudes here decided that they wanted to reach the cross bars, which for a first graders is often very high. The boy in white, being taller, was aiming for the higher of the two bars. He had the correct idea despite being amusingly unsuccessful. The boy in blue had a similar idea, except that his ambitions were lower and more appropriate to his size.








On a side note. It's so sad when I see children in situations like this stuck wearing shoes. People from countries with cold weather tend to wear shoe outside every day of their lives from the moment they can walk. Children from warm countries like you have in most of Africa rarely need to wear shoes until they go to high school . I myself didn't wear shoes, even to school, until I went to high school at thirteen years of age.

"But they will injure themselves" Trust me, they are not nearly as fragile as you think and they will very quickly learn to LOOK WHERE THEY ARE GOING instead of taking it for granted that there is something to protect them from their own negligence.

Winter done. Summer fun.

With winter an almost distant memory, outdoor activities during and after school are in full swing. The first graders have an after school football training session which they can join. In these photos you can see them playing. For the most part things go well, except that the students who are larger and further along in their physical development tend to dominate/intimidate the smaller less coordinated ones.




With children of this age even periods of no action is interesting to watch. The ball, as it does in football, went out and resulted in a goal kick. Goal kicks are defensive kicks and should mean nothing more than the defenders pushing up with the goalie kicking the ball towards them. However, at this level even a talk as simple as this needs some serious organisation, and with organisation I mean getting the children to actually look at the stationary ball for more than 2 seconds.

Some students, however, have absolutely no interest in the game. Their interest levels are so low that sticking their fingers into the ground is apparently more interesting. I caught Bobo, not his actual name, here doing it on more than one occasion. (To be fair, one of the photos is not of him, but I'm going to pretend it was him, for story sake.)




When the ball eventually came his way it was a sight to behold. The goalie kicked the ball impressively high and far. It looped straight towards Bobo. Hearing everyone scream at him he pulled his finger out of the ground, turned tail and started running towards his own goal. The ball landed right next to him bouncing high into the air. Only a second or two after the bounce, with other students catching up, did he even bother to look in the direction of the ball. It is the precise moment of him looking that I managed to capture here.

The rest of the game, when the ball came to close for him to completely ignore everything, he would run alongside the ball or crowd, just far enough to not actually have to do anything.

He was not the only one with little interest in the game. His friend, Dumbo here, not his real name, was a little more social, and sometimes got involved, but it never took much for him to be distracted from play.




So easy was it to distract him that when he saw me with he camera, the game was completely forgotten and he came running towards me swinging his arms in the funniest of ways. It is so easy to love the first graders (as long as I don't have to teach them)