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Question from a reader: non-smoking, please!

A reader writes in:

Hi Chris,

I was looking forward to traveling all around Korea when I moved to Seoul nearly 18 months ago. But I’ve had a heck of a time because I am severly allergic to smoke. This is not something that’s been easy to explain to locals, even when (trying to) use Korean words. I ellicit blank stares in places like Sokcho or they assure me that the room has been ‘cleaned’ and I still get sick. I’ve only been able to find four and five star lodgings that have genuinely non-smoking rooms (not that they use air-freshener and call it n-s), and those prices are crazy. We’ve been to Jeju, Soraksan, Busan, etc but I’d like to spend more time smaller towns and villages. Do you or your readers have suggestions? Or know of any non-smoking inns, homestays, hanok, motels or small hotels? They can be anywhere really.

Thanks for your blog in general, and any help in specific.
Best,

[L.D.]

Photo credit: Andrew David Watson

L.D.,

This is probably a more common allergy than people realize; even if it’s not an allergy, call it a strong dislike. Even with the government imposing heavier fines on smokers in public places and at least one Itaewon bar being non-smoking, it still feels like a losing battle. 2010 OECD statistics claim 44.7% of Korea’s men smoke – 2 1/2 times more than the US – and it’s not uncommon to see a no smoking sign right next to an ashtray.

Most of the smaller hanok or homestays I’ve seen won’t allow smoking – but a few will get their puffs in anyway. Most of the smaller hotels are rife with smoking customers, and there aren’t enough people requesting non-smokers to keep one available. One of the only places I’ve seen people actually respect the ‘no smoking rule’ is at Buddhist temples; inside most jimjilbang is a close second, although some have smoking rooms that aren’t well-sealed. Neither of these are ideal places to sleep, unfortunately.

Have you considered picking up a portable air purifier? I haven’t specifically looked for these in Korea, but Amazon has a few different brands of varying prices. Your other option might be to call ahead to the tourist information center in the area you’re visiting for any recommendations – or to have them call local hotels on your behalf. Explaining your allergy as severe or being very sensitive to smoke may do the trick. The Korean: 담배연기 알레르기 (dam-bae-yeon-gi al-le-leu-gi)

OK, then, time to open this up to the readers: have you discovered any non-smoking hotels or inns during your Korean travels? How have you dealt with excessive smoke or smoking around you?

 

Creative Commons License © Chris Backe – 2011
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This post was originally published on my blog, Chris in South Korea. If you are reading this on another website and there is no linkback or credit given, you are reading an UNAUTHORIZED FEED.

 

Annoying Things About Korea #13: Blatant Opposition to Meritocracy

It’s Difficult to Know Where to Start
This news article appeared in Yonhap today, which makes Korea seem like Planet Backwards. School-age children study 10 hours a day from elementary school through secondary school. They compete like crazy (sometimes to insanity) to obtain admission to Korea’s elite universities, and then to Korean corporations. You would have thought that once a person found a job, he/she would expect to do his/her best on the job, and be compensated based upon performance. You would be wrong in certain cases.

Do We Really Have Nothing Better to Do?
The cost of living is high, the rate of inflation is increasing, households are struggling: the demonstrators have nothing better to do? Instead, they leave another, ugly example of why foreigner investors can find Korea a troubling place to allocate capital. It would be almost impossible for a foreign investor to accept this attitude by employees, unless the price of investment were ridiculously attractive. If the price of investment were “ridiculously attractive,” then of course, there would be another demonstration against the purchase price. Now, Korea is a highly developed economy, but one can only wonder how much more developed it would be if meritocracy truly reigned, and if people didn’t waste their time demonstrating needlessly.


Ssole Vintage – Kyungsung - Busan Awesome

http://busan.cityawesome.com
"like" us on Facebook for weekend updates!

The goods on sale at Ssole, Kyungsung area, BusanWe’ve been trying to save money, so I created this great 400k/week budget for my fiance and I, with 50k reserved for clothes – I mean cause that seems like a lot of money, right?

This week, we failed miserably. Not only did we go out and spend about 200k on Saturday night, but we also checked out Ssole Vintage in Kyungsung, and spent about 100k there (50 for gifts, 50 for personal use). Balls!

I think that says both that a) we suck at sticking to a budget, and b) Ssole is a pretty cool place worth checking out.


Hand-made jewelry at Ssole, Kyungsung, Busan Handmade bags for sale at Ssole vintage, Kyungsung, Busan

The selection at Ssole in general was impressive. There are lots of tops, skirts and dresses for women, as well as jeans and shirts for men too. There are about 3:1 or 4:1 more clothes for women, understandably. The highlight of the experience is the hand-made jewelry and bags for sale. I bought my mom and sister early birthday (and xmas) presents. Bam, four birds with one stone.

Front of Ssole Vintage, Kyungsung, BusanThe worker that’s there most of the time (owner?) is very nice, but very particular about what you can and can’t try on and how you handle some of the merchandise in general. That’s a good thing, though.

There’s also a rewards program, punch-card style where you can get free stuff!

Overall experience: 4/5
Selection: 4/5
Price: $$$/5

Directions: Kyungsung metro exit 5. Walk one block, and turn LEFT before the Outback. Walk down and take your first RIGHT. Walk one more block. You’ll see Ssole on the left, just before the Family Mart. It’s in the basement.



View BUSAN! AWESOME! in a larger map

 

Film drop: Ilford hp5 400, fp4 125, delta 3200+kodak tmax 400

Back to monochrome with a few rolls from the last drop. Winding up a late Sunday here in Korea, taking an online traffic course while organizing a messy pile of negatives. Also making plans for a few days down in Jeolla-do exploring the agricultural rice belt. Here are the monochrome outtakes from the last month.
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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: black and white, Ilford, monochrome, nikkor 24mm, nikon fe2, South Korea, street photography, tmax

Dear Korea #027

Dear Korea #027

Based off of very true events. It’s more funny than it is offensive, really. It’s just a little funny to see how shocked some people look when they realize someone without blonde hair and blue eyes is from the United States. Keep on keepin’ on, taxi drivers!

On a side note, a face palm is harder to draw than it looks.

Also, did you know that Dear Korea has a Facebook Page? If you have a Facebook account, you should totally go and like it! Or not. I won’t cry if you don’t (maybe).

Jen Lee's Dear Korea

This is Jen Lee. She likes to draw.
She also likes green tea.

Got any questions, comments, or maybe even some delicious cookies you want to send through the internet? Feel free to contact us at dearkoreacomic at gmail dot com.

You can also leave comments on the comic’s Facebook Page!

 

Japan’s Defense Future (2): Actions and Initiatives

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I am out of town this week, so here is a good guest post on Japan’s grand strategy troubles from a friend at the excellent Japan Security Watch. Part one is here.

 

Japan’s security situation is ripe for change. There are a number of initiatives Tokyo can take to strengthen its strategic situation without markedly increasing defense spending, or reciprocating the belligerency of neighboring states.

- Greater cooperation with South Korea and the United States. The three powers share interest in areas such as counterproliferation, ballistic missile defense, protection of the sea lanes, and anti-piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Direct, one-on-one cooperation by Japan with South Korea may not be feasible at this time, but both sides may be amenable to cooperating under an initiative led by the United States. In the area of Ballistic Missile Defense, all three powers are essentially threatened by the same nuclear-armed states, so it follows all might benefit from cooperation on ballistic missile defense. While Japan already has an effective ballistic missile defense, cooperation with other countries means access to shared assets and capabilities. An organization based on the North American Air Defense Command could be established to command and control regional BMD assets to provide a common response to threats.

- Evolve an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) capability. Japan’s Self Defense Forces are highly specialized and effective in preventing an adversary from establishing air superiority over Japan, successfully executing a BMD attack, closing Japan’s sea lanes, or invading Japan outright. But in order for Chinese naval forces to sortie into the Northwestern Pacific, they must transit areas close to Japanese territory. The ability to close off China’s access to the Northwestern Pacific with mines, small missile-armed craft, and submarines would go a long way towards curbing Chinese belligerence without resorting to a conventional weapons arms race.

- Increase the ability to project so-called “soft power”. Japan should commission one or more hospital ships with the ability to rapidly send medical and humanitarian expertise overseas. These ships could be sent throughout the Pacific Rim, even into the Indian Ocean and the coast of Africa, to provide humanitarian relief and assistance. Such ships would go a long way towards cooling anti-Japanese enmity in many parts of Asia. To avoid the appearance of being part of a more expeditionary Japanese military, these ships could be placed under command of the Japan Coast Guard, which is under the jurisdiction of the the Ministry of Transportation. In addition, the Ground Self Defense Forces, which have a prodigious number of engineers, could transfer some to the Ministry of Transportation as well, to create an organization capable of doing everything from building roads in remote areas to reopening airports and port facilities after a natural disaster.

- Drop the arms export ban. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in selling arms to responsible governments, and selling arms abroad to such governments could bring in much-needed revenue. The export ban is generally not seen by the outside world as a credible way to decrease the number of conflicts worldwide. (In comparison Sweden, which is one of the biggest arms exporters in the world, is generally seen as a country that promotes peace in useful ways that have nothing to do with arms sales.)

- Joint weapons development and procurement with other countries. The spiraling cost of weapons development, as well the relatively small number of per-unit weapons purchases by the Self-Defense Forces is making weapons procurement extremely expensive. Also, although Japan has a reputation for being a high-tech nation, it does lag behind other nations in the development of certain technologies, the most critical of which being fighter development. Japan could, for example, pair with the United States, Sweden, or France to undertake fighter development, all of which are friendly countries with advanced fighter industries.

Although Japan has had a longstanding tradition of building weapons domestically, it may be time for it to simply give up certain industrial bases in the interests of cost-efficiency. Japan could, for example, purchase amphibious vessels from France, and small arms from Germany. These are just examples, but they’re examples of areas where Japanese industry is either not up to world standard or would require a significant investment to begin production. Buying off-the-shelf in some areas would allow Japan to increase investment in other, vital areas.

- Generate the ability to pre-emptively destroy existential threats. If Japan were under threat of an imminent ballistic missile attack from North Korea, the lack of offensive weapons in Japan’s inventory means it could not strike first and destroy the threat even if it wanted to. Japan’s sole strategy would be to use its’ BMD defenses to absorb the attack, and then either wait until North Korea were out of missiles or convince the United States to retaliate. Either response would be entirely out of the hands of Japan. When diplomacy has failed, Japan must have the ability to destroy threats to its existence, particularly when those involved weapons of mass destruction

- The deeper Japan’s relationships with other countries, the safer it is. The next step for Japan is joint operations with other countries. Japan’s best bet for the future is to burrow into relationships with key allies as deeply as possible, and strive for maximum interoperability. Although the United States and Japan have enjoyed a bilateral defense relationship for fifty years, joint commands between the two have been unheard of. As an example, Raymond Pritchett at the naval security blog Information Dissemination has proposed putting Japanese fighter squadrons on American aircraft carriers.

- The redefining of Japanese security policy as able to accept collective self-defense, and a pledge to defend America would give Japan the more equal alliance with the United States that the new DPJ-led government proclaims it wants, but Japan seems averse to taking the step. Nevertheless, the inherent unfairness of Japan’s stance on collective security is obvious to all and must eventually change.

Altogether, the implementation of these suggestions would not only increase Japan’s security position, they would also help bring it, in international relations terms, into the realm of modern nations. A Japan that can project hard and soft power at will, act preemptively against threats, actively defend other countries, and is fully integrated with its allies is a Japan that has all the functions of a modern state.

 

Kyle Mizokami is a founder and editor of Japan Security Watch, a blog devoted to Japanese security issues. He also writes for the defense and conflict blog War Is Boring.


Filed under: Foreign Policy, Japan

Robert E Kelly
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science & Diplomacy
Pusan National University

@Robert_E_Kelly

 

 

Murree Restaurant

Since the rain has slowed down, today we went to visit Murree Restaurant.
Hubby been wanting to taste the beryani there, after much anticipation from his colleague.

A small quaint restaurant, located in halal food street , Itaewon.


The signage doesn't reflect Korean food, it's actually Pakistani food.

Although the restaurant is small, it's really comfortable and clean when we were there.
Lots of people eating there at the time we were visiting.



Love the chandelier

We ordered two pratha bread, one Chicken Beryani and one Chicken Curry. 
I asked it personally to be hot and spicy.
For 'dessert', we ordered hot tea and milk tea.

There are pizza, chicken tandoori (I think it's their specialty since there's lots of tandoori based menu).
You can also even order from them for take out menu.

The food was great, however it's not meant for those in hurry as when we were there, they cooked by order.
Or it might be because of my request. (=__=)
My curry was hot and spicy, as I asked.



One thing, the portion is quite big.
If you are not a big eater, you can order one beryani and share it.

As for price, for all this, it cost about 29,000 won for two person.

Location : In halal food street , Itaewon.

Dublin Pride, June 25 2011

Hanging around in town (Dublin, not Seoul or Suwon) yesterday we stumbled on the Dublin Pride festival. I knew about it but hadn’t registered it until we were on Georges Street.

The biggest thing about the parade, as far as I could see, was the number of participants! It was quite spectacular, at least for me anyway. I have no idea about the number of gays or there rights/problems/social stigmas that are still attached to them. I know that they are definitely more out and about than back in the day, the day being when I was in secondary school or something like that. I found out later that there was around 30,000 people at it – that makes it second to Paddy’s Day in size and importance

I felt a little proud of the numbers – there were all sorts out on the streets all flaunting the fact that the streets were there’s to be gay. I suppose someone might be offended by that statement but I mean it in the nicest possible manner.

There was none of that shite like I heard there was at the Korean gay pride festival in Seoul where people had to register to take photographs and even then they had to get permission afterwards. This isn’t an attack on gays in Korea, more rubbishing of the hypocrisy that the festival would imply. I get the idea that someone saw everyone else celebrates gay pride so Seoul jumped on the bandwagon too, but people, as proud as they want to be, still have to hide their sexuality for fear of social retribution in whatever form it may come – but maybe I have it all wrong.

Anyway, enough of the ranting.

The Dublin festival was a mix of all colours. There were youth clubs, political parties, corportate awareness, and of course The George, Dublin’s iconic Gay bar, had a truck full of dancers with tunes! Needless to say, David Norris had the opportunity to get a bit of publicity for his presidential bid.  Even Ruairí Quinn was getting in on the act on top of a big Dublin Sightseeing tour bus all bedecked in Labour colours. I got the feeling though that Gay rights were dealt a blow when the Shinners started walking down the road with their own homage to homosexuals, but maybe I’m wrong.

It was a wonderful parade anyway. One of the images that is really sticking in my mind was two middle aged men, dressed very normally and not extravagantly at all – shirt and pants with bit of a belly each on them – walking down the street in the parade holding hands and happy together, both with a sticker on their chest calling for civil marriages for gay couples. I was, to be honest, touched.

Here’s a short video I crunched on my iPhone of the actual parade from our vantage point in front of the Central Bank on Dame Street.

Funniest part of the parade for me was when the big red truck drove by and the woman/man at the front with the big blonde wig and the microphone MCing called out to the crowd, “I don’t know what you are all taking pictures of, this is how we live our lives everyday!” and pointed at the back of the truck where there was around twenty or thirty lads shirtless and in tight shorts ravin’ away in the Dublin sunshine!


Film Drop: Holga 120, New Kodak Portra

Summertime, color film, and a plastic holga seem to have a symbiotic relationship. I’ve been carrying mine around a lot lately. Compared to some of the sleeker machines this plastic contraption of lo-fi goodness can’t quite cut it in the IQ  department, but something about a set of warbled and warped images seems to capture the strange vibe of a place. I’ve been toying with the idea of making a project out of these images that end up feeling like 70′s post-cards. I try to apply this camera to street photography, yet it just doesn’t work. I take it for weird urban landscapes, and everything looks crooked. I’m hoping after a year I can have enough frames that stick together solely by their inability to fit a genre. Anyway, I plan to keep carrying this thing. I have a few BW 120 rolls sitting in front of me, but I think I need to keep this thing techni-color.

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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: holga 120, lo-fi, new porta, seoul, South Korea, street photography

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