(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.

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I had to spend last night at a love motel.

Why?

Let’s start at the beginning.

Sunday night I return from my weekend spent watching the bullfights in Cheongdo (more on that later) and hanging out in Daegu. I walk into my apartment and immediatly notice that the floor feels squishy underneath my feet.  Normally when this happens it’s because an air bubble has formed under the cheap wood grain patterned linoleum that covers the span of my apartment, but this is different.  I Flip on the lights and walk around for a bit trying to figure out what the problem is when I hear a loud squelching sound a notice water coming coming out from underneath the linoleum where one sheet overlaps another. It turns out that there is a layer of water trapped underneath. So much water that when I step firmly on the floor in the center of the room I  see small ripples migrating towards the wall, which makes the floor look like a cheap water bed.

Elsewhere in my apartment pools of water have formed on top of the linoleum but luckily none are near any electrical devices and my dirty clothes hamper remains untouched. I try to access where the water is coming from and even contemplate trying to clean up the mess myself but it dawns on me that I’m too tired, too hungover, and it’s too late in the night for me to care. Instead I decide to deal with it in the morning.

I wake up for work the next day and realize there is a lot more water than I originally thought. This is evident in the water that has now begun seeping out into the entryway by the font door. I arrive at work and explain the problem to my co-teacher, who eventually calls the landlord. I’ve gotten used to assuming the worse in these types of situations so I’m already thinking that I’ll end up having to foot the the bill for any repairs that need to be done or at the very least have to stay somewhere else for a few days while the problem gets sorted out.

By lunch my co-teacher has talked to the landlord and he says that the water is coming from a broken pipe under my kitchen sink. I’m told that I need to go home and clean out the area underneath the sink so that they can come and make the necessary repairs in the morning. Fair enough, I can do that. I’m also told that I should try to clean up the water that is already on the floor and that the water valve to my apartment has been cut off to keep anymore from leaking. I’m not really excited about having clean it up myself, but I figure any effort on my part that can bring quick and painless end to this dilemma is well worth it. I’ve heard and read many stories involving english teachers going through hell because of household malfunctions–sometimes because of negligence on the part of a landlord and other times because teachers are expected to deal with the problems on their own, with little or no help from anyone. In my case, I’m lucky to at least have a co-teacher who can do my bidding for me. I head home hell bent on getting as much water up as possible.

After an hour of sliding around in flip flops with a makeshift mop (really just a swifter sweeper with an old towel attached to the end of it–not the best tool for the job), I realize that I am doing nothing more than moving the water from one place to another. It’s clear that that I won’t be able to remove it all and at this point I’m thinking it will probably require some professional assistance.

So lets review what we know so far:

1. A pipe has broken underneath the kitchen sink.
2.  There is water all over the floor, made worse by my attempt to clean it up.
3. The pipe will be fixed, but until then the water to my apartment has been completely cut off (No shower, no laundry, no flushing of the toilet).

I throw some shit in a bag and head to a love motel for the night. Lucky for me there are a slew of them in my neighborhood so I pick one at random and pray that it won’t break the bank. For about 35 bucks I get room with the following amenities: a round bed, an interior that looks like it belongs in a Tim Burton movie, a satin robe that barely goes past my butt (not that I tried it on) and red neon lights that are attached to the ceiling. I’m officially set for a one-man psychedelic orgy photo shoot and best of all, it has running water.

While at work today, my co-teacher tells me that not only has the landlord fixed the problem under my sink (which actually turned out to be a faulty water heater) but he’s also taken out my recycling for me. Little is said about whether there is still water everywhere except that I should turn on my ondong floor heating system so that whatever water remains will dry more quickly.

I walk into my apartment halfway expecting to see the water still there, but to my surprise there is not a drop to be found. From what it looks like, he pulled up all the linoleum, removed the water, and laid it back down. I Imagine he had to to move the furniture around to do this, but if he did I certainly can’t tell. He also took it upon himself to clean the mirrors and television glass, take out the garbage and arrange some of my shoes next to the door (which actually creeps me out a little). I’m considering sending him a thank you card as well as a request for his services on a weekly basis in exchange for english lessons.

So what stated out as a near disaster turns out to be only a minor irritation due to the help of my awesome co-teacher and and a landlord who either felt sorry for me or is simply an overachieving neat freak.

It’s too bad really. I was somewhat looking forward to spending another night the porno infused love motel.

Ciao,

Kimchi Dreadlocks