http://busan.cityawesome.com
Visit our Facebook page (and 'like' us too!)

We’re on the 3rd floor trying to get some work done, but the two college students a few tables over are smoking like factories and playing the loudest damn game of Kawi Bawi Bo I’ve ever heard in my life.

It goes on like that for five more minutes, and we’re starting to get perturbed by all the rocks and papers and scissors being thrown around. All of a sudden, my fiance asks: “Wait, did that guy just say ‘cowabunga’?” I look over at one of the guys who was now standing up and flexing triumphantly, wearing a Red Sox hat and a Yankees jacket. Cowabunga was evidently his winning cry, and just like that, they’re leaving the cafe.

Yes, I DO bring my teddy bears everywhere with me.

That was our first time at Cappuccino, and luckily, our fifteen or so trips back there since then (we’re pretty much permanent fixtures there now) have been much quieter and laid back. Most of the clientele are college students because of its proximity to Pukyong Nat’l University, but they’re more the studious types.

The whole place looks and feels like an old house, with little study rooms and nooks everywhere. It has 3 floors (2 main floors with a split-level/mezanine in the middle), and there’s also a garden with lots of greenery that makes you feel like you’re not in the middle of a city. Really, though, no matter where you choose to sit, the atmosphere is cozy, and a great place to get some work done.

The service at Cappuccino is wonderful, and unlike most other cafes (but not restaurants), there’s a ‘magic button’ on the table to call the server. The beverages are good quality and of comparable price to other cafes in the area (see price list below). The cakes are good too. It’s also laptop-friendly. There are power extension cords galore, and Wifi is available. There are little post-it notes stuck all over the walls with the ID and password. If for some reason it’s not working, you can always borrow some wifi from the Avatar PC room next door (ID: avatarpc).

An enigma: they have a wine rack with wine… however, you can’t drink it (we’ve asked plenty of times). So if you want some booze, you have the choice between a black or white russian. Not a bad choice.

Definitely check this place out, especially if you have some work or studying to do and plan to be in a cafe for a while!

Drink Prices:
black tea – darjeeling, lemon, earl, jasmine, orange, kiwi: 4
herbal tea – hibiscus, rosemary, lavender, camomile: 4
americano: 3.8
espresso: 3.5
cappuccino: 4
hot chocolate: 4
black russian/white russian: 6k
milk shake: 5

Food Prices:
cheese cake, choc cake, tiramisu: 3.5
waffle: 2.5
bagle, croissant: 2
sandwich (egg + ham): 2.5

Directions: Kyungsung metro exit 5. Turn left out of the exit (around the corner) and go four blocks down the street. Turn left just past the Family Mart. Cappuccino is in the free-standing house on your left.

(Sources: SeoulBeats & personal scan)

Welcome Busan National University students, and please click here for the PowerPoint presentation that accompanies my guest lecture next week. I look forward to meeting you!

As for regular readers, this will be a repeat of the lecture I gave at the Royal Asiatic Society in Seoul back in February, but unfortunately I’m not aware if it is open to the public yet (I’ll update this post if it is). Partially, I’m posting the file here because it’s much too big to send via regular email, but I’ve also had many requests from readers for something like it, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully a much improved and simpler version of the original, now only a handful of the slides in it require my additional explanation to be understood, so I hope you can enjoy it even if you can’t make it to the lecture.

Please feel free to ask me any questions about the contents and/or for links to posts where I discuss any of the issues raised in it in more depth, and – as always – I would be extremely grateful for any feedback!

This was taken last weekend at the Cheongdo Bull Fights and I sort of like the “300″ look to it. I did this same treatment the last time that I was out there a few years ago and stuck with it for the updated shots.

Why: I wanted to portray a “Gladiator” or “300″ feel to these shots and I love the mood of those movies and I think that it goes well here. Also, when I looked at my shots, I wanted to make something that stood out and was a little more on the dramatic side. Also, I found when I corrected the levels, the photos were a little flat and cold.

How: First, lets look at the basic set up at the time of the shot. I was using my trusty 70-200 canon lens set at f2.8 and iso bumped up to around 400 to make sure that I could freeze the action. I also brought my monopod along to further steady the camera and lens. This is my basic sports set up.

Next, I normally shoot in raw and here is no exception. Typically shooting in raw for sports is a concern because you want to have the speed without having to wait for the buffering to finish. When you shoot in bursts in raw, older cameras like mine with have a lag while processing the images. However here, I didn’t feel that it was much of a concern. With the photos taken, I opened them up in Camera Raw, but Aperture or Light Room would be suffice.

If you use the Auto settings, you are going to get a really flat picture. What I did for this shot was I desaturated the image until it is almost black and white but there is still colour in it. I also went back up to the top and warmed up the image using the temperature slider.

If you are using CS5 which has the lasted version of camera raw, you’ll see a new “fx” tab, I went there and added a post-crop vignette to draw more focus to the action in the center of the frame. Once that was done I opened the image up in photoshop. In the older version it will be found under the tab that kind of looks like this “((()))”

Once inside photoshop I did my usual size and sharpening adjustments.  I went into levels and dropped the mid-tones down a bit to really make this a bit more gritty. Then I added a warming filter and increased the percentage to something close to that “300″ look.

That was how I achieved this shot. it sounds like a lot and to be honest this is more than what I would normally do for a regular shot, that it also why I find it so interesting.

Tuesday 19th April, 2011

I rode into Sum Yung Dong AKA Neon City for some cheap $2 dollar store shopping and souvenir shopping. I promised to get mum some little magnets hand made out of clay of little Koreans wearing their traditional outfits. I also went to the Daisio discount store and managed to pick up a few other things such as scarfs, earrings, cosmetic bags, lollies, biscuits, hairclips, nail polish and some makeup accessories. I absolutely love Daisio. It's a great brand, made to quality and cheap. They recently opened a big store in Sum Yung Dong and Jenny, Tiger, Emma and I went in there the first week they opened and spent around 2 hours browsing and finding unusual items.

At around lunchtime I arrived at the big markets and the area was buzzing with streets vendors, customers, school kids and foreigners! I had never seen this area so busy before. Usually when we go, the big markets only has a few stalls here and there doing business. But today, they had stalls over flowing on the streets and in neighbouring lane ways.

They were selling anything you could put a price tag on. Seafood, nuts, fruit and vegetable were a plenty. There was a lot of second hand clothing and fashion accessories. Sweets, socks, hair clips, plants and flowers. You could find everything you needed.

Seafood

Sauces

smoky

vegetables

I'm not too sure what this is, some sort of sponge cake perhaps?

Tofu in blocks!

Fried goodies

pig meat

Fresh flowers

Tomatos!

Seafood

fish

plants and flowers

Socks! You'll never run out of socks!

Herbs and spices

Delicious strawberries

I loved every minute of it. The colours and smells and the noise and the hectic atmosphere. It was spring and the city was alive. I'm not sure if the markets are open every day or not, because from what I've gathered, most markets open when it's a nice day out. We have some markets across the street from the hotel and they're usually open on Thursdays and sometimes on Fridays, but I think now, with the weather warming up, they seem to be in operation on more days, but it'll be very random.

Wooden furniture..

No dogs!!! I don't know who would wear these socks?

Seafood on the streets

The Big Markets

On the way back, I stopped to have a bit of a gym workout, but I wasn't really feeling it, so I didn't stay too long. I remember how excited I was at seeing the cherry blossoms in bloom, but now my excitement got even bigger! The TULIPS were blooming!!!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE tulips and they look absolutely gorgeous lining the footpaths. The colours were so vibrant- a rich, lipstick red and very bright, sunny yellow. It looked like they had been painted, they were that perfect!

First time I've seen this kind of pup, especially in South Korea! It's a Bedlington Terrier!

Tulips lining the footpath

one word- Gorgeous

My pretties

I'm truly loving spring here. People seem happier, I get to wear t-shirts and the flowers are blossoming.
x

me with the beautiful tulips!

It's Spring and the markets are alive! remains copyright of the author Two Otters, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs