Seoul is like a lot of other cities. Small pockets of interesting findings but with some macro stereotype or norms. The Han river cuts through the city flowing from east to west. The southside (gang-nam = south river) where i work + live is predominatly home to up and coming yuppie, fashionistas and the like. Kinda like the West Village, the Pearl, Southend or the Gold Coast (with businesses). The northside of the river (gang-buk = north river) is the grundier, up and coming yuppies of the future. A feel similar to the SOHO of old, the East Village of today, Alberta, South Boston or Wickerpark.

Tonight I hung with the hang-gook crew. An all night rave – outside in a shopping district where nobody lives. The Sounds of Seoul, headlined by the DJ that brought the artform to Korea. We arrived typically late, around midnight and danced the night away till around 3a. The music was marginal but the people watching was superp. I wish I could have taken better/more picture but that would have been rude, but from the blue hair euros to the trashy east side girls to my fellow expats to the true ravers… it was truly a cultural clash night.

8 hour korean language lesson today. 3 teachers. lots of role playing :) and no english. ugh. this could be a brutal 2 years. AN YANG KA SAY O (goodbye)

After 29 straight days of work, events, parties, focus groups, entertaining and more work, I decided to take today off – Friday the 13th. I figured an American superstition deserves a day of rest. And what else does one do on a day off? that’s right – GOLF.

Now you wouldn’t think that something like golf could be that different around the world – grass, trees, sticks and balls right? Wrong. First of all, it’s wicked expensive to play golf in Korea as the whole country is pretty much mountain so land comes at a price. $250 a round average. After that shock, the next brainchild was pants. It’s 95 degrees and humid all summer and all golf courses in korea are mandatory PANTS! What’s up with that. The next genius move (truly) is mandatory caddies for every foursome. This guy/gal keeps you on time, drives you around in a superbig cart, get’s your clubs, tell you distances, etc. And thank god he tell you the distance because when i’m 136 meters up hill, i really have no idea how far I am – damn metric system! In addition, every hole has an AJUMA (little old lady pretty much) who’s job it is to clean the green, fix divots, etc. Talk about cheap labor! Here are some other snapshots from the outing!

/ The Mighty Foursome

/ Wild in the Big Cart

/ We even saw the Mayor of Seoul (on the left)

/ Jung Won walking off 9

/ J.Choi with the SMOOTH Swing

/ First Hole

/ Fifth Hole

/ Ninth Hole

/ High Mountains and Long Fairways

By the way… it was marketing vs. product. Marketing won.

It was a HOT summer night in the city of Seoul and just as the clock was striking midnight, I was finishing a blade down the river. 12 kilometers on one of the biggest city rivers in the world and still 25 degrees and humid to boot… but it was beautiful. It’s kinda like chicago, but bigger. Bridge crossings every 2 kilometers or so… and after the World Cup in 2002, the city decided to light all the bridges in unique ways (as every bridge is a unique structure unto itself). Aside from the honking traffic on the highway ridge above, it was like a little slice of peace in the middle of the concrete jungle.

Was at Sung Woo Resort this weekend for the first ever Nike Basketball Camp – about 2 hours outside of Seoul. It’s a ski lodge by winter and B-Grade resort by summer. The basketball was the best I’ve seen since I’ve been here. Watched 6 straight hours; 20+ games, buzzer beaters, overtimes and double overtimes – impressive and hope for hoop in korea.

But the real phenom that I discovered while I was there was that picking up girls in korea has taken on a whole new dimension. Met a water aerobics + dance instructor (i’m sure we’ll have a lot in common :) and as much as two people from two totally different worlds could, we hit it off ok… but flirting through people translating, her 7 words of english and my 5 words of korea (hello/gbye/congrats/thanks/beautiful)… it was definitely tougher than usual. The same happened on sunday at the Seoul Hoop Jam event. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted :)

OK. I had my first weird food experience. Apparently, at the end of the Korean War the country was obviously in really bad condition – personally, economically and socially. They felt beaten up and there were US army bases with GI’s everywhere. These soldiers were working hard and eating well and the koreans were struggling to get by with any kind of food. So after the soldiers would eat, poor koreans would sift through their trash, find any remnants of food… bring it home and boil it into this big stew like contraption.

Don’t ask me why, but somehow this caught on and their are these stew houses. They have a korean name which i really can’t remember, but you go there – they put a pot in front of you and basically boil water, ramen noodle, sliced hotdogs and some veggies. So odd i tell you. I’m not saying it was a bad meal, but it wasn’t a good meal either. For some apparently, it’s some kind of comfort food, but this is one of those cases where i’ll take the mash potatoes with mac+cheese!

The Nike Korea office is in a typical city office building. 3 floors of a 20 story building in the downtown area of Seoul. Every once and a while they’ll make a building wide announcement telling people to move their cars or that the garage is closing. The lights flicker at 6p to let people know it’s “time to go home” and the air conditioning is going off. Nothing too unusual and the kind of thing you just get used to.

Tonight, this siren type of noise went off – just 3 short bursts – following by a flicker of light and a korean announcement. It wasn’t like a fire alarm but seemed more serious than the garage closing. Then the power went out for a minute. I went out to see what was going on and the crew tells me that every 6 months or so, the North Koreas “attack” seoul. It’s more like a missle test where they launch missles from the north over south korea and they just land in the ocean on the south side of the country. To them, it wasn’t a big deal and something they’ve come to get used to. I of course am like – WHAT THE FUCK! They ask me if i would feel more comfortable downstairs in the bomb shelter and if i have enough ramen noodles in my house just in case. Test missles over the city! What kind of place is this…

I’m not saying i was 100% buying this but they were definitely getting to me… and after about 10 minutes of this back and forth, they gave it up. Just kidding! A joke on the non-korean speaking american! No bombs. No attack. Just a flicker in the power…

The trials and tribulations or working at an overseas company. Today: a two hour finance and fiscal forecasting meeting – IN KOREAN!

Monday. August. A ZILLION degrees outside… and a broadway ballet. Well not exactly. The Nutcracker – in August? And not exactly the ballet, but the ICE ballet? oh, this could be a little too other side of the world for me. Christmas shows on ice in august… ah korea! It was not bad – a troop (if you call them that) from Russia and hudreds of screaming kids which makes the whole evening that more comical… and harkens me back to my Blue’s Clues Live Tour days! I guess it’s just nice to get out of the office and experience life in seoul!

The best part was actually dinner. We ate at this little italian cafe on the top of this hill with these old, old, winding stone steps. Not too far – maybe two or three flights, but with a rustic feel of stone and wood. It was in a part of town, on the other side of the river that is very cool. Chill, small boutiques, low buildings and reminiscent to what life must have been like decades before the olympics, world cup and nike. Seoul’s own little west village. If it weren’t for the 1 hour commute each way and lack of english speaking population, it’d be where i’d choose to settle my tired butt. It had just enough energy and just enough geniuness to be a place I could call home. Maybe next year….

Potentially the longest 5 days of my life… and most likely the coolest, most stressful, proud and frightening 5 days i’ve had in Korea (ok, so it’s only been 3 weeks). We hosted Gary Payton and his crew on a trip to Korea. Our first NBA athlete and the most marquee athlete ever… plus, LeBron’s agent. Gary’s first time to Korea and first time in Asia since 1996. You name it – it went wrong, giving a new definition to preparation and being a step ahead. Autograph signings, basketball games, sightseeing, dinners, clubs and much, much more (not for public consumption :).

At the end of the day though, unless they had the gaul to lie to my face after 5 days… they had a good time, which is all that mattered. The Farewell Sendoff! More to come….