Lee's Korea Blog

Signing Out

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 23:13:00 +0000

I first started this blog in 2006, right before I arrived in South Korea. Over the subsequent years, it became an enjoyable experience for me to post my photos up and add a few wayward comments. As an expat settling down in a new country, I think it was a helpful tool for me to reflect on and understand my new environment.

I've since survived a PhD, gotten married to a wonderful wife and had two wonderful kids. In 2013, I joined a Korean pharmaceutical company and have been pretty flat out since. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I've felt a little guilty about not blogging more often. There are two reasons why I haven't kept up with blogging over the past couple of years. The first is that my kids have become a central feature in daily life, and free time has been in short supply. The second is that I've felt less compulsion to blog, perhaps not just due to a lack of time, but also because I've become extremely familiar with this country that I now feel is truly my second home. While my readership has always been small, I greatly appreciated the helpful comments over the years from you all, and especially the messages of support and congratulations during the big events.

We made the decision last December to move back to my hometown of Adelaide, Australia, in order to raise our kids there. We're actually departing in a few hours from now, so this is my final post here in Korea on my final day in the country. We'll be back for visits, of course.

I would like to thank you all for reading this blog over the past decade, and hope it provided some amount of amusement or useful information. I hope to post one final time after we settle back home in Adelaide to provide you with an update.

Many thanks all, and best wishes.

Road Trip to Anmyeondo

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 08:45:00 +0000

Every once in a while, the Koryo Peninsula Farrands will venture out to rice paddies beyond the comfortably familiar, and embark on a road trip to imbibe new sights, sounds and smells.

Many months ago, one such journey took us to an innocuous little island that we shall call Anmyeondo.

I had been there many years ago, together with an entourage of adoptees on a government-sponsored program to wreak havoc on the motherland.

I have vague memories of fine sunsets, warm nights, and noraebang.

And so it came to pass that I triumphantly returned, this time accompanied by wife and offspring.

We came by way of a then-new Farrand Mobile, which held up remarkably well along a series of meandering roads that to our muted dismay would become decreasingly less road-like.

Baengy took the opportunity out west to inspect a solar panel farm.

"A respectable conglomeration of photovoltaic systems," remarked she.

If tidal pools, stones and mud were alone responsible for making places famous, Anmyeondo would be far better known than it is today.

As it turned out though, we weren't the only pool-stone-mud admirers in the neighbourhood.

This photo of Baengy reminds me of the Spirit Rover, trekking across the windswept rocky plains of Mars.

Although Anmyeondo was a little less exotic than the Red Planet.

Photos are not the best devices to depict wind, but it was quite a windy day. Our daughter's gleeful reaction in the photo above was her response to the force of the gusts, which were enough to wave her hands around.

And those little cauliflower-like patterns in the sand were produced by sandworms. Quite possibly distant ancestors to the Sarlacc.

Baengy is the pale yellow dot in this photo, appearing like a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam.

We recalled her back to basecamp shortly thereafter and encapsulated her in a cosmic biosuit to protect her from the elements.

The next steps of the Spirit Rover came timidly at first, but then with higher frequency and rising confidence.

Like the pitter-patter of introductory raindrops before the monsoonal downpour.

Baengy and I soon realised that we had no time to waste in constructing a sand berm, if we were to stand a chance at protecting our matriarch and precious larva from the unforgiving winds.

Precious larva seemed suitably impressed with the fortifications.

But then again, precious larva is easily impressed in general.

If you tickle his toes, you've made a friend for life.

No praise is too high for the efforts of Super Mum, the stalwart mothership who even managed to recapture the rebellious Spirit Rover after it failed to obey commands to return to base. Those commands were transmitted over numerous audio channels and even received a visual acknowledgement of receipt.

Suffice to say, Spirit Rover can be quite mischievous at times.

It wasn't long before the sun set on our voyage west. Anmyeondo is recommendable if you like solitude, windy beaches, and unremarkable geological features. We had a good time overall, but mainly due to the family travel factor. The west of Korea is not unlike the east, but with more tidal action.

If you're in Korea and looking for a nice road trip, I'd say that the south-west of the country (Haenam) is probably a better bet. I'll make a post on that, sometime soon.

How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice. Hi, my name is Lee.

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 06:26:00 +0000

Time. Energy. Access to a computer.

When these three entities are in temporal alignment, a celestial event referred to as a Blog Posting can occur. Such events happened with greater frequency in times past, but two hyperspace anomalies recently supervening in our quadrant have been sucking all resources and material toward their gaping maws, wreaking general havoc on all that was once good and peaceful in the galaxy.

Their names are Ashley and Alex.

Since last posting, much has happened in the world of the Farrand family. No news is good news, as they say. We continue to do very well, despite having neglected my old friend The Blog, who at one time dearly comforted my ego as a friend in whom I could reliably confide.

I am aware that there may no longer remain any remote interest in the life and tribulations of a single expat in the cybersea of one million foreigners currently residing on the Koryo Peninsula

But I can say that I've recently bought an iPhone 6, and no longer have photo storage issues.

A veritable catacomb of myriad orifices may be a good way to describe the daunting labyrinth of unposted photos residing in my desktop image folders.

New folder. New Folder(1). New Folder(2). New Folder(3)... ad nauseum

So what I'll do is post about past events incongruently, and imagine the software-based forensic historians of the future can patch up any inconsistencies, should they care.

I'm of the persuasion that anything we publish online these days has no reason to find itself deleted, save for deliberate action. The reason being that although what we say is of only minute historical significance, the economy of modern memory technology effectively renders deletion a needless activity.

I was recruited by a Korean pharmaceutical company after graduating from SNU in August 2013. The job was lined up from February 2013 due to a lucky mix of contacts and a man called Anthony Nguyen, who serendipitously introduced me to my current boss on the sidelines of a symposium.

And I must say, it's one of the best things in life that has happened to me. Apart from growing up in Australia, moving to Korea, marrying my wife and having kids.

My company, which will remain nameless for search purposes, is an excellent place to work. Sure, the working culture has it's own differences and peculiarities, but nothing is a match for the insanity of Korean graduate school. Having spent more than four years within the immalleable bureaucracy of the SNU machine, nothing is too much for my now experience-hardened and immutable patience.

The work is stimulating, but most importantly, the people I work with are people I like and respect. They make me want to work harder. Although I'm the only foreigner in our company (of 1,500 employees), and despite my sketchy Korean skills, I've never once been made to feel sidelined because of it.

I have a variety of duties including business development, communication with overseas parties and medical writing. I also spend some of my time doing cancer screening experiments in the labs. Each week brings something new and interesting.

An oddity I've observed at this company is that normal work statistics do not seem to apply. My previous formulation of Lee's Law states that, "For every 10 researchers that exist, at least one will be difficult to get along with."

This does not seem to hold true for my current company, as I've yet to identify a difficult person. There could, however, be a secret enclave of difficult people all working together in a unit of the company somewhere, whom I have yet to meet. This would fulfill the requirements of Lee's Law, statistically speaking.

These two gentlemen are both directors in my unit, called the R&D Strategic Planning and Operation Unit. We three went hiking soon after my induction, and ended up walking about 13 km, stopping to drink makkeoli at a cemetery and eating pajeon on the way home.

Nothing is better for bonding than talking about the intricacies of work politics while tipsy in a cemetery.

I started an English conversation club that's held during Wednesday lunchtimes, which has continued for a year now. It's been a good way to make new friends, and the company has been kind enough to support us with a dinner budget to celebrate every six months.

I joined the company with a group of new employees, and we've bonded well as dongi (fellow inductees). We had a housewarming party at our new apartment, and one of my colleagues brought his two daughters over as well.

I like it when guests play with my kids.

And then there are the company 회식, or work dinners, which are an integral part of Korean corporate culture. At these mythical events, one is expected to get tipsy and become more frank with others, thereby serving an important social function - to maintain harmony amongst co-workers who would otherwise have no appropriate venue to vent or fraternise.

Although dreaded by some, I tend to enjoy our work dinners immensely. It's free food and alcohol.

Heather continues to be an extremely impressive mother. She is stalwart, steady and comforting. Our relationship has always been remarkably good, and only seems to be getting better. That may also be because I'm losing some of my unseasoned tendencies with age. May time continue to mellow the immature tannins of my personality.

If I had to pass but one piece of advice onto the younger generation, it would be to work on making yourself good enough to deserve someone you admire.

And our two kids continue to bring us much delight, albeit with much energy displacement. The best way to describe them in common terms would be two heavy, spongy, variably-smelling, jumping jellybeans of mischief and entertainment.

Ashley is speaking a fair bit of Korean and a little broken English these days, while Alex emits random vocalisations from which meanings can be discerned by pitch and duration.

As another new year dawns on us, I do wonder whether I'll be able to post more often, if not for the sake of tracking the rapid growth and development of my aggies. But then Lee's Korea Blog will inevitably become more of a Lee's Kids Blog. I am acutely aware of how uninteresting it can be reading about another person's kids. But what can you do.

You are more than welcome to follow along if you are interested in seeing two little Korean kids grow longer bones and proportionally smaller heads.

Wishing you a safe and prosperous 2015.

Gwanak Mountain

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:27:00 +0000

One thing this old blogger likes to do is talk to himself in his head about how long it has been since he last posted. Aware that such mutterings can easily sow the early seeds of a number of druggable neurological disorders, we here at Lee's Korea Blog have decided to attempt a limited slash and burn at the overgrown jungle of as-yet unposted posts that need posting.

Within the dusty cloistered catacomb-like vaults of my image archives, a substantial stash of pre-Alex photos await even the most basic of accompanying narratives.

Unfortunately, I do not believe they are going to post themselves.

This photo was from a spontaneous picnic that occurred near Incheon, back in the day when the other members of the now-famous Couples with Kids Clan were yet to have their kids. Ashley was the first baby on the scene, and thus a center of interest and a considerable scoop for the Farrand family.

Here's a photo of some fish that our old neighbor's hung out to dry on their clothes line.

As one does, when one is fond of dried fish.

And incontiguity in storytelling aside, one early morning at around 5am, many moons ago, a mildly sleep-depraved band of SNU colleagues found themselves perched upon a mountain.

For what reason we chose to climb the mountain at such an unagreeable hour has since been distorted by hwesik myth and alcoholic recollection, but I seem to remember it had something to do with the topic of wolves.

Of which there are none on the Korean peninsula.

This rather stark geometric projection is a signal amplifier perched atop Gwanak Mountain.

And here's Baengy learning how to poop atop a chambered pot. She went through a number of cycles, shunning the tall white structure and going back to her kiddy potty, only to triumphantly return to the throne and leave a sizeable deposit a few days later.

The holding of her feet by Mother Farrand seems to put her more at ease.

Here's Heather's father and brother consumed in a game of Go.

Apparently there are more combinations of game outcomes in a game of Go than there are atoms in the universe. I have a rather boisterous friend who does not believe such claims, but it appears to be quite true.

According to Wikipedia:

"The game complexity of Go is such that describing even elementary strategy fills many introductory books. In fact, numerical estimates show that the number of possible games of Go far exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe.^{[nb 15]}"

I don't quite know how we can get our heads around that one, but it's safe to say that humans have a very primitive grasp of exponentially large numbers.

This photo is from a walk in the Geumjeongsan park near Heather's parent's house in Busan. Back in the golden days when Baengy still had no hair.

When I was a boy, which in many ways I still feel I am, although by some metrics I guess I may not be, but anyway, questionable use of punctuation aside, when I was a much smaller boy, I remember very much being enamoured by all things biologically aquatic. Guessing that such a strong impulse may have genetic origins, we took Baengy to the Coex Aquarium to observe the results.

It soon became apparent to us that Baengy is scared of no fish. Fish larger than Baengy-size, next to the glass, with crooked razor-sharp teeth and mouths ajar like gaping wounds, received not even the slightest flinch from the unblinking eyes of our offspring.

Although I am not entirely convinced that she knew we were standing next to aquariums with real fish, as opposed to large television screens.

Our daughter knows what a camera phone is and has been observed to take the odd photo of herself from time to time.

She has also learned the fine art of the sarcastic pose.

She tends to make friends with people wherever she goes. In the photo above, a shop assistant is showing her some phone apps. Baengy placing her hand on a stranger's shoulder means that they have been promoted to a fairly high status.

Promotions tend to happen quickly when smartphones or sweets are involved.

We spent a good deal of time teaching Baengy how to kiss properly. She knew that it had something to do with two sets of lips being brought within close proximity of each other. However, the coincident vacuum peck was not to be realised as a necessary addition until many months later.

And we also noticed that she likes lids, to the extent that we soon found that any bottles or jars within arms reach were at risk of being thoroughly investigated and the contents strewn across the floor. So Mother Farrand decided to address the problem by manufacturing a 'lid sampler' with 3 different kinds of empty plastic bottles with lids immobilized onto an old shoe box. The amount of time Baengy has spent playing with this box of delights has both bewildered and pleasantly surprised us. So much for the electric piano and Fisher Price gear.

And then we noticed that Baengy likes putting things in slots. So Mother Farrand cut a mailing slit into the same box, and we gave her some business cards to play around with. The device overall has kept Baengy occupied for hours on end.

I guess the moral of this story is that a bit of creative thinking can keep your aggies occupied for extended periods of time.

Happy New Year everyone.

Big Baengy Starting to Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Baengy started to speak a few months ago. Her abilities have since improved dramatically and she can understand quite a lot now.

We mainly talk to her in Korean at the moment. It's not a conscious decision, but it seems more natural seeing as it's the language used at her daycare centre. My Korean is still terrible.

English will come soon!

Boracay Sunset

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 07:21:00 +0000

Last year's winter was a bitterly cold affair in Seoul, with frozen roads lined with snowy slush. In the midst of its chilling depths, we decided it would be rather pleasant to go somewhere nice for a long weekend. Somewhere warm.

Somewhere tropical.

A few mitigating factors hampered the immediate actualisation of our tropical escapade proposal. At the time, Baengy was not yet two years old and Heather was 6-months pregnant with Alex. I was in the final year of my PhD and our financial situation was not particularly sparkling. Call me paranoid, but I swear there was a muffled chortle whenever our bank book was handed back by our cashier.

But despite our rather 'cute' bank balance, in the end we decided we needed to do what we needed to do. We placed Baengy in the care of diplomatically-delighted halmoni and halaboji in Busan, and went away for a long weekend to Boracay in the Philippines.

It's a pleasant problem to have to untether a layered mass of cumbersome winter clothes at a foreign airport due to warm tropical weather.

It seems that when the sun has all but forsaken the Korean peninsula, Boracay is where it comes to play.

On the sandy beaches of South Australia, one can be forgiven for expecting the alluring waters to be hospitably warm. This can often be followed by a cold reality shock when dipping ones tootsies into the waters, on the other side of which are the Antarctic ice shelves.

Not so, in Boracay. The waters here receive visitors with generous servings of jovial thermodynamic gravy.

After leaving our baggage at the hotel, we promptly hopped into the warm waters with a moderate amount of childlike glee.

There exist various desktop backgrounds on office computers around the world that depict idyllic sandy locations with glimmering turquoise waters. These are the places where our daydreams take us.

But actually going to one feels a bit like visiting Disneyland, or being sucked into a Nintendo game.

The sunsets were invariably spectacular, although brief, while the sands retained a soft warmth at dusk.

Traveling with Heather is always an enjoyable experience. In my opinion, there are two types of fun travelers: those who enjoy suggesting interesting things to eat and do, and those who agree that such suggestions sound good.

I'm of the former variety, while Heather is of the latter.

We stayed at the Boracay Garden Hotel, a fairly nice place with outdoor pools and decent cooking. Rooms were spacious and cost about $120 per night.

Transport occurred from place to place in open hybrid vehicles of questionable safety, to which we held on tightly.

Common sense is the most affordable type of traveler's insurance.

In the very first restaurant we ate at, we sat with Rani and Minseon, two other Koreans in our tour group. They work at the same company in the southern city of Gyeonju, and save money to travel together every few years. They're both married, although their husbands are not fond of traveling.

We had some good conversations about life, the universe and everything, over bottles of Filipino beer and cheap fruity cocktails.

For a handful of Filipino pesos, you can rent a deck chair for a day. But the sun inconveniently moves in a wider arc across the sky the closer you are to the equator, necessitating an incessant shifting of chairs toward the elusive shade.

Oh, the humanity.

Good buffet breakfasts accompanied with strong coffee started each day off in the right direction.

"More fresh mango juice, give you sir?"

"Why yes. Yes please."

Our tour was run by a Korean company, and Boracay is very popular with Korean tourists. The benefit of joining the tour was in not having to figure out everything ourselves, from the reputations of local restaurants to the unsolicited offerings of jet ski rental from strangers. The down side of the tour was not being able to do things at our own pace, and having things explained to us as if we were from the dark side of Pluto.

"This is a snorkel. You breathe in this end. This other end is the one that sticks out of the water and brings air in. You cannot breathe if both ends are underwater."

We went for a boat tour of the surrounding islands and feasted on crabs for lunch. I don't mind the odd crab now and again, but I find their hardened exoskeleton makes them a fuss to eat.

I am more of the fish fillet persuasion.

"Many men go fishing without realising it is not fish they seek."

A quotation that came to mind, although on this particular occasion it was in fact fish we sought (and caught).

We enjoyed San Miguel and Red Horse beer on the boat, along with fresh mangoes and sliced sashimi from the fish we caught.

The ajosshi at the table was quite a character. He brought a nice stash of smuggled bottles of soju in his luggage from Korea to share with everyone at dinner times.

We also took a ride on a fast catamaran. It still amazes me how they can sail back and forth on the same route using the same breeze.

The locals we met along our well-worn travel route were cheerful and accommodating. On the final night we went to a beachside club and had a rather merry time.

All in all, it was an excellent holiday. Although we were worried whether we could afford it, in the end it felt like money well spent. The great weather, warm waters and plentiful activities made it a destination worth visiting.

Everyone needs a holiday once in a while, and Boracay is a great place to have one.

The Blogging Resumes

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 14:56:00 +0000

"Time and tide wait for no aggies*."

- Origin unknown

*Aggy is the Korean word for 'baby'

With a distinct dull roar, the ongoings of the recent six months have whooshed past, and off into far distant horizons inhabited by a loose ecosystem of hazy memories unfortified by regular blogging.

The cause of such a predicament, post mortem reveals, can be traced to a series of momentous overlapping life events that converged simultaneously for the perfect storm, all of which could only be accommodated within an inadequately small teacup of a schedule.

But we have emerged unscathed. And dusted ourselves off to resume blogging with aggies conspicuously older than last seen.

The first major event we dealt with was moving house, as our lease of the SNU family accommodation expired with the completion of my studies. The family mini-apartment we had at SNU on campus was excellent, although quite small for two boisterous babies who enjoy making a mess. We had two bedrooms, our own kitchen, bathroom and two balconies, subsidized to W150,000 per month. It had everything we needed, and made a significant impact on our ability to live comfortably in recent times.

But the time had come to move. All constituents of the Farrand household were thus summoned to attend a Thing, during which the future direction of the household was decided upon.

Finding accommodation for a family in Korea is no easy task. Families in the bigger cities here are like eager hermit crabs, dashing into recently vacated shells whenever an affordable apartment hits the market. Further complicating the matter is the arcane yet popular practice of jeonse, whereby large deposits (hundreds of thousands of dollars) are lent by the tenant to the landlord instead of regular rent being paid. The landlord is then free to invest the tenant's money during the period of the lease contract.

We were faced with the choice of borrowing money from the bank to pay a large jeonse, which we would have had to pay interest on, or borrow an even larger amount of money and buy a house instead. We, of the Farrand tribe, do not take such decisions on a whim. Arguments were heard, opinions were raised and countless cups of tea imbibed. Eventually, a motion was put forward to go the full monty and borrow enough money to purchase our own abode.

The end result of voting was 2 votes in favor, with one abstention and one unintelligible answer.

To make a long story short, we ended up buying a house through auction in Suji-Gu, which is about 40 minutes south of Seoul. As fortune would have it, someone (an investor) with lesser fortune had previously purchased a house using borrowed money, defaulted on it, and had it seized by the bank. Heather, being the incalculable genius that she is, managed to win a silent auction on it for only slightly higher than the reserve price. We bought our 31 pyeong apartment for W247,000,000 (approx AU$240,000) and spent some further money to remodel the interior.

Baengy was pleased.

So we moved in at the end of August, an action that required an enormous skycrane to ferret our belongings high up into our new perch. Although it all sounds rather smooth, there were a number of obstacles. Luckily, I have a resilient partner who is also very good at solving all manner of problems.

Although our old place was fairly crowded with furniture and belongings, our new place swallowed it all up with room to spare. Previously, whenever Baengy became excited, she would do a sort of hopping jump on the spot to release energy while not bumping into nearby walls in our old place. Now she runs all around our new apartment with glee. I think that simple fact makes all the money and effort worthwhile.

One of our new balconies.

Heather also seems content, although we don't yet have all the furniture we'd like. Such things shall come, with the passage of time and the arrival of paydays.

In our new kitchen, it's strange having so many things that work properly. Our previous gas stove was quite fickle and had to be ignited using a secret ritual involving a perfectly-timed flick of the wrist and a recited compliment. And our old faucet would leak for a while after being turned off.

But everything in our new place has an eery efficiency to it.

Alex is quite a joy to watch growing up, even by baby standards. He smells like fairy floss and likes his big sister a lot. Big sister exhibits an amusing blend of tolerance and ambivalence toward his frequently outstretched and grasping hands.

They both like books, sent to them by Grandad Kym and Grandma Mary, and read to them by Mother Farrand. Baengy has already learned the English alphabet.

My new job is going well, which I will talk about in more deserving detail in the near future. One of the most noticeable things that's happened since graduation is that I now have more spare time. I joined the Australian Chamber of Commerce recently, and we've attended some of their events. These photos are from a barbecue they held at a hotel in Seoul.

Baengy knows what cameras are and what to do when faced with a lens. One of the funny things she does though, is talk to the person she's posing for, in babytalk.

"Photo? Cheese?"

I've managed to keep taking photos in regular intervals over the past few months, although I haven't kept up with the blogging. I've decided that I'll put as many of the good photos up that I can, over time, even if the chronological order is a bit dodgy.

I think we, the Farrand family of Korea, are in a lucky situation now, with a future to be looked forward to. And Ashley and Alex are both growing up at breakneck speed.

I'll try to keep up my end of the bargain and continue taking photos, and hope the memories won't be forgotten.

Business as Usual in South Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:37:00 +0000

Things are trundling along nicely ever since I earned my freedom from the university labbatoirs. I've landed a new job, which I shall talk about freely in due time.

And Heather and I have taken out a bank loan for a new house.

Alex and Baengy also continue to do well, as babies do when administered with sufficient levels of nutrition and sunshine. Baengy is speaking more these days, mostly in Korean, and has yet to outgrow her fetal name. Mr Alex, on the other hand, spends most of his days in quiet contemplation of what I imagine to be the raucous ongoings of the Farrand house. I will post more, when time permits.

For the meantime, all I can offer for your interest is an article I wrote for Seoul Selection, a rather nice magazine in Seoul to which I think you should heavily subscribe if finances permit. The article was liberally cropped for publishing reasons, and maybe because of its slightly gloomy choix-de-nuance. I wrote it as a permitted distraction around the same time I was writing my thesis papers.

The article was asking bloggers in Seoul what they recommend in terms of places to go, things to eat and things to drink. My original entry in its humble glory is as follows:

--------------------------------------

- What is a place in Seoul that you think people should visit and why?

Sorae Maeul - French Village, Bangbae-dong.
Seoul may not be initially lovable to every traveling connoisseur of the developed world's megacities. Repetitive units of suburbia can induce a subdued state of directionlessness when traveling the city by taxi, while the same by city bus adds a hint of vertigo to the experience. Apartment blocks litter the urban landscape, like armies of colossal tombstones, from which the odd glass skyscraper can be seen rising up, frozen in its historical bid to escape the clamour of convention below. A gargantuan automated subway that is its own obsessed demon, places Seoulites wherever the algorithm of life destines them to be with an aroma of wicked efficiency, while sweeping up in the human river those who stumble or lose their way. Into the darkness of Seoul's underbelly it will take you, popping out into the grey sunshine every once in a while, to present its sardine-like passengers with views of the mighty Han river, itself appearing like a Kraken Gandalf on its own slow stampede toward the mudflats of Incheon. Should you find yourself heading south on such a blasphemous mode of transport, I highly recommend alighting at a station called Bangbae on the green line. Within the leafy confines in which only a chosen few can reside, lies not so much a diamond in the rough, but more of a welcome reprieve within a vast urban outdoor dungeon. Sorae Maeul is a small streety area, peppered with foreign restaurants and glinting in the healthy glow of a French community hidden to the naked eye. Here, one can find such rarities as recognisable bread, unsweetened pickles and Seoulites commuting by foot in an unhurried manner. Although I don't visit the Promised Land frequently, it does feature in my daydreams from time to time. It's a reflection not of what Seoul really is, but perhaps of what it may earn to someday be.

- Can you recommend a place to eat at and why?

Seen here: http://map.naver.com/local/siteview.nhn?code=31375644

생고기 4,900
Wedged unassumingly between an unremarkable real estate agent and the misnomer of an Outback Steakhouse near Exit 1, SNU Station, is a medium-sized barbecue restaurant called Saeng Gogi 4,900. The name means 'fresh meat 4,900', which, as you may note, appears to reflect the owner's disregard for appetizing descriptions. Here they basically sell two items, fatty barbecue pork and duck meat, for barbecuing on heavily sloped pans that inevitably gnash and spit with displeasure at whatever visceral contents are plopped onto their searing surfaces. Assuming that you are not seated at the dreaded Toilet Table (so named for its intimate proximity to the site's ancient lavatory), one can have a pleasurable dining experience. The lack of a fixed door to the back of the restaurant adds an element of outside influence to the smokey atmosphere of the noisy room. This place is generally crowded, not least because of the reasonably priced and fairly tasty meat, but also, as I like to think, because of all the things it doesn't try to be. The sign above the self-serve banchan trolley warns of a 5,000 won penalty should you overstock your chopshi and not entirely devour the fruits of the weathered ajummas morning labours. And the meat is good. It tastes good and people come to buy it. Despite my insecure propensity for uninvited wordiness, I feel I wouldn't be doing the place justice if using more bourgeois terminologie. The flies and the heat coalesce with the cacophany of neighbourly diners shouting above the din of sizzling pans, for what I imagine would be an atmosphere akin to a Namdaemun market samgyeopsal festival. And the occasional solar flare caused by a random sizzling ball of oil leaping for freedom from the frying pan will ensure that more than the recommended weekly intake of anaesthetizing soju is consumed.

- Can you recommend a place to drink at and why?

Littered amongst the urban sprawl and as synonymous with daily Korean life as kimchi and plastic surgery can be found the modern Korean convenience store. At carefully calculated intervals they sit, like a dispersed monument to the logistical revolution, ensuring that a steady stream of discount processed foods are always within reach of the modern weary traveler. With their inviting lights bringing the brilliance of a desert day to the gloom of a solitary post-hweshik walk home, to their virtually guaranteed stock of fresh(?) triangular kimbabs, these friendly metropolitan equivalents of the bygone speakeasy serve more than just Minute Maid juice(?) and Denmark Milk with an arbeiter's smile. Through some divine act of grace bestowed upon the Korean expat community ever since the first Germans brought beer to Korea, at no place in Seoul is cheap alcohol not within reasonable walking distance. While probably not al-fresco in the intended spirit of the term, one can often pull up injection-molded chairs and an umbrella-impaled table, sit, and enjoy the scenes of the passing local milieu. A number of foreign beverages are usually for sale, along with the local industrial fluid confusingly labeled as three distinct brands. For those practicing the forgotten arts of inebriated alchemy, I highly recommend a mix of soju and aloe vera juice in the bottle. It rivals Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon.

--------------------------------------

Hopefully, I will post some more updates on this blog before it becomes nothing more than a stagnant collection of unvisited memories dwelling in the moody backwaters of cyberspace.

Until then, I wish you good health.

Victory at Last

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 06 Jul 2013 02:59:00 +0000

On June 24th, 2013, five signatures from the weathered hands of five stoic Gatekeepers of the Tunnel Exit signed a document confirming acceptance of my doctoral thesis for graduation.

The document concerned is the middle page in the photo below. Looking at it now, it makes me wonder about the intangible connection between the climbing of Mt Everest and the value of a certificate, however humble, saying that one had done so.

The moment itself was a favourable one. Immediately after my final defense session, I was courteously banished from the Room In Which The Decision Is Made for an indeterminable period of time. Sitting by myself outside, in the cumbersome unfamiliarity of a button-up shirt and tie I sat, involuntarily reliving the experience. The time was passed with minute self-critiques on how every rebuttal and explanation I provided could have been delicately improved. Feelings of quiet confidence began to seep into my conscious periphery with strangely unwelcome conspicuousness. When the stakes are so high, one does not dare to tempt the inestimable forces of irony with hubris.

When the door opened, I was welcomed in to the sight of all five professors on my assessment panel standing. I then received a handshake, and the words "Congratulations, Dr Farrand."

And that was how, after years of toil, it came to pass. Euphoric, no; but satisfying, yes. Whether it was worthwhile will be judged in the years to come.

I intend to post a more detailed summary of the secrets, scandals, rewards and woes encountered during my PhD at Seoul National University, at a later date. In the unlikely event that I do not do so, I would like to preemptively convey my conviction to our valued readers (some of whom may be graduate students), that no single attribute or philosophy is the key to succeeding. But patience and hard work are strong contenders.

I do not wish to belittle in any form the efforts of any of my colleagues who have yet to complete, or who have previously chosen to give up on their PhDs, of which more of my closest friends at SNU have than haven't. The undertaking of such a decision is considerable in itself, and it's simply unfair to claim that success is entirely dependent on personal determination. A myriad of adverse outside forces are incessantly at work, and they are unbalanced in their selection of whom they wish to provide a greater number of stumbling blocks for.

For those seeking some form of inspiration or guiding advice for graduation, I would say the following. In order to graduate from any doctoral course of considerable difficulty, one must jump through a dizzyingly vast number of hoops, each of which, although small, collectively represent the difference between Making It and Not Making It. These hoops are tasks to be completed, deadlines to be met, people to be placated and any number of other tediously repetitive daily minutiae. Some people quit after jumping through only a few hoops, others quit after jumping through nearly all of them. If you are destined to quit, then it will most likely be a single hoop or a very small number of them that represent your final judgement.

The ability to succeed is helped not by an accurate assessment of the number of hoops or the amount of stamina required, but by a transformation of perspective. There are too many hoops to realistically comprehend without experiencing a potentially fatal dosage of inadequacy. One must therefore think of oneself as an amateur hoop-jumper from the beginning, practicing to become a professional. The focus lies not in jumping through all of the hoops, but to become so accustomed to jumping that no matter how many of them there are, the task will always be achievable given adequate time. Just keep jumping. There will be more hoops after you graduate.

While I'm relieved and happy to have completed this chapter, I'm acutely aware of the contributions made by my kids and especially my wife, who has endured my late nights in the lab, absent mindedness and workload complaints over the years with patience and dignity.

And I also hope to get back to more frequent blogging. Even the cobwebs here that used to provide some macabre decoration for my blog have long been abandoned by the Google spider. During some of my late nights in the lab, especially over the past few months, I would open my blog, scroll through the photos and read friendly comments left by readers from bygone eras. It certainly helped to lift spirits.

But anyway, for now, these hoops are done. They're dusted.
And there will be more to come.

"Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."

-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Royal Vavi

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 31 May 2013 08:55:00 +0000

On the sidebar to the right of this post is a link to an online shop called Royal Vavi. It sells clothes and accessories for toddlers, and is run by a certain Korean brother-in-law of mine. I have three Korean brother-in-laws, but he's undoubtedly the biggest and scariest one.

I shall tell you more about him someday.

I've been in self-imposed blog torpor for the past couple of months largely due to my thesis defense sessions, the final of which is approaching on June 24th. It's a little busy these days, but the light at the end of the tunnel draws tantalisingly near. I hope to do some catch-up blogging in the near future, but am temporarily emerging from hibernation to plug these products.

Partly because I like to think of myself as a good brother-in-law.

To bring our valued readers a better understanding of the quality children's goods available at Royal Vavi, we've chosen to display some of the merchandise with the help of these two toddler models.

We shall call them Toddels.

Toddel #1 is getting bigger everyday. Note her height in comparison to Toddel #2, who is her cousin and two years her senior. Also note their purchase-worthy Royal Vavi clothing. The prices are very reasonable.

Although he doesn't speak an ounce of English, I'd like to thank scary Brother-in-law for the free clothes he gave us. And if you have a toddler of your own, I highly recommend perusing the fine clothes or accessories available at Royal Vavi.

See you soon!

Back in the Game

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:27:00 +0000

Alex is a very cool and chubby chap. But immediately after his birth, the ethereal master switch that governs the daily events of the Farrand household was reset again, as it was when Baengy was born.

And once again, we find ourselves under the command of another tiny tot.

We have thus far surmised that he enjoys a snuggle, and a wrap.

And is becoming increasingly agreeable to the taste of milk.

Mother Farrand breastfeeds him when possible, but at times the (wailing) demand exceeds available supply.

He's nearly a month old now, and on most days of the week appears to consume his own bodyweight in milk.

Heather is a star.

As she has always been, in the role of Mother.

Alex lost his fetal name of Ga-ga, pretty much as soon as he was born. He just seems more like an Alex than a Ga-ga.

Ashley, on the other hand, continues to be called Baengy by just about everyone. I'm sure it'll pass in due course.

Alex opens his eyes for a few hours each day and has a look around. It sometimes seems as if he can see things, but at his age, he doesn't quite know what he's looking at.

If you zoom in and pay close attention to his pupils, you can see that they're just moving around in a somewhat random and leisurely manner. If I were obliged to narrate what I suppose he's thinking when he's looking all over the place, it would go a little something like this:

"I think I'm gonna have a little look towards the vicinity of my left now. Great. Ok, now I'm gonna have a look in the general direction of my right...A-huh. Now back to the left and up a bit. Cool."

Sometimes it seems as if he can see us. But then if you move, he continues to stare at the place where you used to be.

And then if you say "Aaaaalex!", he'll wiggle his eyes over toward the general direction where he thinks you are.

Australian Grandma and Grandpa kindly sent us some baby boy's clothes. But apart from those, we've just got a whole lot of Baengy's old garments. It seems a waste to go out and buy new ones.

I'm pretty sure Alex doesn't mind.

Baengy's also being helpful and seems to be acutely aware of the new household arrival. When Alex starts crying, she'll turn to us and say "Agi-ya!" (baby!), as if to alert us to the wailing, in case we hadn't heard yet.

She also touches Alex very carefully sometimes and says "Yeppeuda", which means "pretty".

With a bit of luck, they'll grow up to be good chums.

The Birth of Alex

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 05:55:00 +0000

This past week has been a flurry of activity, sleeplessness and excitement. Both Mother and Alex Seo-jin Farrand are recovering here in the maternity ward in Busan and continue to do well.

Like his older sister, Alex opened his eyes on the first day and took his first panning view of a room. While he couldn't see us, we hoped that our voices would have sounded somewhat familiar and reassuring.

Watching Baengy grow up has been profoundly rewarding beyond anything we could have expected. Her birth was a somewhat difficult affair, however. Heather was in labour for 36 hours without food, as our limited options dwindled to the decision to undergo c-section.

This time around, the doctor's first recommendation for Alex's birth was c-section as a result of the previous delivery. While the surgery was an uneasy time of waiting for all of us, the event overall was easier to prepare for.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30am on Wednesday. Heather received her local anaesthesia at around 9:40am, and Alex was out breathing air in the real world at 10:35am. Although in relative terms the procedure went fairly swiftly, birthing wards are strange places where time itself follows exclusive rules. The wall clock transforms into a stoic guardian of time, allowing only tiny sippets to flow past in excruciating suspense, so as to magnify the significance of the event. The only option for those in wait is to attempt to address the quiet storm of worrying thoughts, self-reassurances and uncommon reflections circulating in the mind.

Then after what seemed like a short eternity, out popped Alex in all of his newborn glory. Considering his nine months in the womb, he was looking pretty good. The first thing I noticed was that he cried a little less than Baengy did, as the nurse proceeded to check his ears and count his fingers and toes. Then he was whisked away to a safer part of the hospital, out of our sight with his mother. Korean Mother-in-Law and I walked out into the foyer area, beaming and utterly relieved. The feeling lingered for many rewarding minutes, before we started worrying about Heather again. My lack of Korean proficiency comes back to punish me on occasions such as these, as I attempted to lighten the mood and reassure Mother-in-Law using the vocabulary of a Korean pre-schooler.

But it soon turned out that Heather was wide awake, could answer our questions and thankfully seemed okay. C-section will never be an easy event, but fine and strong ladies like Heather make the experience less terrifying for husbands like me.

Heather and I have been sleeping in one of the recovery rooms at the hospital here, where we have easy access to view our little Alex downstairs. Heather will stay here for a few more nights before transferring to joriwon accommodation, which is in the same building but with more privacy. Baengy is staying in the care of her grandparents nearby, while I'll be returning from Seoul each weekend. We plan to reunite as the all-new Farrand Family of Korea back in Seoul in around three weeks.

Fatherhood is a great thing. For me, the instinctive feelings to nurture and protect grow slowly and steadily rather than rapidly, but the change persists with unmatched longevity. The biologist in me finds it rather fascinating.

It's not possible to fully prepare for the arrival of a new child. Parenthood is a colossal privilege suddenly bestowed, to be properly earned in the years to come. I imagine that with every birth, a divine debt is abruptly incurred. And the stakes for non-repayment are sufficiently high that dutiful responsibility manifests itself as quiet undertones of influence that permeate into all facets of life from that point onwards.

Heather and I are looking forward to our future together with our two wonderful kids. And as it was for Baengy's birth, we can't help but feel deeply indebted to the medical staff for their professionalism, as well as to those around us who have been offering their kindness and support.

Our Second Little One

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:27:00 +0000

At 10:35am on March 13th, Heather gave birth to our second child, a son. He weighed in at 3.4kg and opened his eyes a little on the first day.

We've named him Alex, and his Korean name is Seo-jin (서진). His mother is recovering well. Overall the birth went quite smoothly, and we're relieved and excited.

We greatly appreciate everyone's support.

More details coming soon!

The Wonder Years

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:35:00 +0000

Baengy started attending daycare around the time of her first birthday. While she seemed very young, we thought it best for her to interact with others of her species as early as possible. And by that I mean chubby, drooling, like-minded and often hairier-headed Korean babies. We hoped it would help give her a headstart on such important lessons as Social Norms 101 and Introduction to Different Toys.

She has been attending the Geumbit ("sun ray") Daycare Center, a small but cosy place in Nakseongdae. These photos were recently given to us by the Geumbit staff, as it's now time for Baengy to move to a much larger daycare center.

We were a little worried about how she might settle in, and Mother Farrand stayed with her all day during her first visits.

We get filled in on the day's events every time we pick her up. It's fun to imagine what went on during the days passed by looking through the photos.

One can speculate that during those crucial beginning months, much of her surroundings elicited mixed baby feelings of confusion and curiousity.

"...but where's Mum?"

Eventually the surroundings became less menacing, as food could be accepted from familiar strangers.

While barley water of our own was preferably drunk in private.

Birthdays were celebrated, despite obliviousness to the occasion.

And bridges were built. And crossed.

New friendships were formed, although no one can quite remember how.

And the wild outdoors were explored in fantastic detail.

Shapes, colours and sensations all coalesced into an educational experience that would somehow become meaningful in future.

While energy levels cycled through periods of depletion and replenishment. Somehow, our daycare mummies were uncannily tuned to the instant when our tiny bodies were exhausted from a morning of play.

And when we awake, those same friends remain.

New items invite endless new experiences.

And then we suddenly realise that we are no longer the youngest or the smallest.

As the sun sets on the first episode of Baengy's experiences amongst peers, we remain cognisant of the fact that she'll be leaving friends and familiar faces behind. But every ending is a new beginning, and we are very much looking forward to the next patter of baby steps forward.

All in all, we've found the quality of daycare in Korea to be excellent.

Here's hoping that the next center will be as good as the last!

What We're Eating in Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:58:00 +0000

Unless I'm vastly mistaken, our small family of three remain the only representation of the Farrand tribe residing on the Korean peninsula. However, a non-zero possibility also exists that we are the initial flashpoint of a future mighty Farrand empire that will eventually spread from Busan to Northern Manchuria, enslaving all members of the Lee, Kim and Park families. As such, I thought it timely to create this recording of our daily degustations.

Just in case our descendants of the future find pertinent to ask: "Which nutritional substances fuelled our imperialistic origins?"

To which I answer: Strawberries.

If indeed a substance in strawberries is later identified that leads to imperialistic behaviour, let the record state that I'm not to blame. Both Baengy and Mother Farrand eat them quite often. Their modus operandi is to rinse a bowl of strawberries, sit on a chair together, and consume them slowly and savouringly.

I'm more of a banana man myself.

This old cook once new a trick or two, but now he only remembers one. That's to find out what's in the fridge, chop it into sections and fry it with whatever condiments can be redeemed from our aging collection beneath the stove. Luckily the Farrand ladies are not fussy eaters.

In the photo above is an impromptu eggplant stirfry, an old lentil curry, and a bowl of makkeolli with a cinnamon stick in it. Not too bad for a household that spends the majority of its budget on babywear.

Our allies of the Lim tribe joined us for an expedition to Ansan quite some time ago. James is a self-described fan of food and his heartbeat quickens with any mention of deliciousness. For James, trains of deep thought can be quickly corrupted with a simple mention of the words "large juicy burger."

Hypothetical conversation

James: "So that's why I was having a dilemma about whether to invest my savings in a balanced portfolio or put them towards a comprehensive life insurance plan."

Lee: "That's fascinating. Nearly as fascinating as large juicy burgers."

James: "But you know, insurance can be.... mmm... burrrrgers."

We stopped by at the trusty Dieu Hien Quan, one of few locations in the Republic that serve Vietnamese food without pickled onions. In the photo above is the lemongrass duck, which we ingested along with cold rolls and the mandatory phở.

After that it was time for a walk in the park. Which, as the idiom quite rightly suggests, was a very easy thing to do.

Baengy had a nice time sitting on James's lap. Brings a whole new perspective to the word 'chairman'.

After milling around lazily in our fine food-induced digestive delirium, I went shopping for the Ansan Essentials: tumeric, and those shrimp-flavoured instant noodles from Thailand.

Back in Seoul we've been keeping to our bi-annual scheduled visits to Chili King. The burgers here fulfill the two requirements of every respectable burger:

1) Big, and

2) Good

To avoid burger dismay, I now lurk within the shadows of burger veterans on Facebook's Burger Lovers Seoul group. I gorge myself on the endlessly fascinating conjecture about what makes a burger deserving of praise.

Little did I know that some burgers are worthy of knighthood.

We also tried something new at Steve's house, a cookoff with couples and children. On the way there, Baengy was staring at me like this while sitting in her babyseat. Sometimes she does that.

I hope she's thinking productively.

Most people would be wary of hosting any kind of event that simultaneously involves couples and babies, and exceeds 6 pax. However, such people are not likely to be in possession of the largest house in the Korean hemisphere. Which Steve is.

The luxuriousness of Steve's aircraft hangar can be summarised by mentioning a single feature in the bathroom: Magnetic Soap.

It hangs from a rod above the sink and can be pulled down, as opposed to the pesky soaps that we barbarian folk use, which requires us to pick up the soap.

Within the masterchef kitchen, amenities previously unheard of quickly highlighted the unsophisticated among us. For instance, many seconds I spent trying to operate the faucet, only to be kindly told that the faucet is operated by the hidden foot pedal. But of course.

I didn't dare mention that I had never seen a household yoghurt maker.

These sorts of gatherings are a good opportunity for our wives to catch up and pour forth their deluges of chatting, carefully stored since last meeting.

Steve has single-handedly created a dish I call the Cardiologist's Nightmare, consisting solely of fried asparagus and bacon. Luckily we had enough red wine to hopefully invoke the French Paradox.

That's Steve sitting on the right. The man of the house, deliberating on the day's earnings.

After slowly sampling each dish and chewing carefully, he emitted a number of happy grunts, and we all breathed a sigh of relief as the night turned out to be a modest success.

Many years ago, the first dish I ever cooked for Heather was a noodle soup. It must have been fairly good, because we eventually got married. Back in those days, I was fresh out of the kitchens of the Casuarina Malaysian Restaurant, and could whip one up in ten seconds flat. These days my hands are a little slower off the mark, and I sometimes forget to add important things. Like water.

But the ones in the photo above turned out pretty good.

Here's a laksa I made on the following weekend. Laksa is quite possibly my favourite dish.

Itaewon holds an annual international food festival, and this year we chose to brave the masses. Into the thick of it we went, with me pushing Baengy out in front with the stroller, and Heather following immediately behind.

We, the Farrand Tribe of Korea, like to travel in single file - so as to hide our numbers when walking in the sand.

As always, it was a good chance for the mothers to catch up and share the stories that mothers like to share. I like seeing them happily chatting together like this.

Even though we fathers are pretty sure they're chatting about us when we're not looking.

At the end of a long day out, we ended up at Vatos, a nearby Mexican place. Vatos is fairly good, a little oversalted and overpriced perhaps. What I like is how they dunk their Corona bottles in the cocktails like that. A couple of them are sure to put you in a jolly mood. In which I was.

As for the future of Farrand dining, I can't see too many drastic changes on the horizon. We'll continue to eat what the seasons bring, while the Farrand ladies are sure to dine on strawberries whenever they drop below W5,000 per kilo.

See you next time!

Munich in a Nutshell

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 02:52:00 +0000

A habit this young blogger has cultivated over the years is to work odd jobs, in addition to a primary occupation. It's nice to have extra cash flow, and staying busy can be a good thing.

When I first arrived in Busan in 2006, nearly all of the casual work I did was tutoring English to students.

After 6 years here, things have changed a bit. Anthony and I have been working as part-timers for the Dong-A University Hospital Clinical Trial Center since April 2011. The center is in Busan and I live in Seoul, with our work revolving around a mix of consulting, document preparation and business development. Most of the work gets done by email.

Not long ago, we were sent on a business trip to Munich, Germany.

We've learned a lot on the job, and traveling is one of the perks. I can only travel when my lab work is going well, but Anthony has been going overseas every few months. Our main task is to build relationships with organisations related to clinical science, and learn how things happen in different parts of the world.

Before new medicines can be used in hospitals or pharmacies, they first need to be tested on human subjects. These tests occur in clinical trials, which are complicated events that have spawned a large industry to support them. Hospitals and private companies will set up clinical trial centers to win contracts that are often sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. These centers are a blend of research and business, and our role is to focus more on the business aspects.

Our trip to Munich coincided with the European Society of Cardiology conference, one of the biggest such events in the world. There were 30,000 heart doctors from all over the world, clamoring around in a refurbished aircraft hangar.

We attended a lot of meetings and completed our work objectives, but I only took photos during our downtime. We spent ten days in Munich, and were given generous free time to roam the city. Dr Kim's daughter, Sue, accompanied us. She's fond of horses, so we tracked down a horseriding club while we were there.

The food in Munich was a welcome change from the usual cafeteria lunches in Seoul. Quite a few times we ate at a Brauhaus, the collective name for local pubs that sell delicious beer and huge chunks of meat. In the photo above is a great local specialty dish called axen, which I imagine was often devoured by hordes of ravenous Visigoths in the past. It's baked pork with crackling and gravy; a little salty and very good with the white beers they sell.

It was strange, but nice to eat three meals a day without rice again.

As well as the food and beer, we were similarly stunned by the richness of the city architecture. I'd never been to Europe before, and this gothic building that watches over Marienplatz seemed to speak volumes about the old world. How humans could design and build such a thing amazes me.

It looks even more daunting at night. I would expect organ music to go quite well with it.

I can't say I know a lot about carving things out of stone. But there were many fine-looking lions in Munich.

Here's Sue and Anthony, hanging out in one of the modern shopping districts in central Munich. Prices for clothes and food in Munich are slightly higher than in Korea.

We received an invitation to a celebratory dinner for the completion of a large clinical trial called Trilogy-ACS, headed by Duke University.

The trial itself involved thousands of volunteers and was focused on comparing two drugs that inhibit blood clotting, for application in heart surgery.

It was a lavish affair with food, beer and wine flowing freely. In Germany, I ate so much meat that I eventually had a continuous aura of meatiness emanating from my body.

Meatify (verb): To make a dish even meatier than normal.

Ex: Refrain from adding more cured meats to that plate, lest you meatify it beyond recognition.

Later that same night we were invited to the launch of a new company. It was a cocktail party held at the Munich Skybar.

Quite nice, although overwhelmingly pink.

It's hard to find good breakfast restaurants in Korea. The traditional Korean breakfast is largely indistinguishable from other meals of the day; there's soup, and there's rice.

In Germany, patrons line up at their local delicatessen to get their breakfast. I like that.

Bread and sausage make a good breakfast only when both bread and sausage are delicious. And indeed they always were. Even the mustard and tomato sauce were good.
German bread is more than just bread. I don't know how that's possible, but it's incredibly bready bread. In a good way.

If there was a bread heaven, it would be full of German bakers.

One peculiarity often reported about some Korean people when traveling is a lingering addiction to Korean food. This has caused all sorts of odd situations, like stories of crowds of ajumma eating Shin ramyeon in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Korean food in Germany is very similar to that found in Korea, but it's described in much more colourful language. For example, kimchi jiggae is "Eintopf mit Kim-chi, Tofu und etwas Schweinefleisch."

If memory serves me correctly, that final word means "pig flesh."

For our little band of Koreans, the Korean food addiction manifested itself in the desire to seek out the only Korean restaurant in Munich, to eat dinner at one night.

We even drank soju.

In Germany, nearly everyone drives a BMW, a Volkswagen, a Mercedes or an Audi. I know they're all German, but I imagined they would be too expensive for the layperson. I guess there's some kind of secret German discount.

The BMW museum building is designed to resemble the pistons of a car engine.

This is a concept car made from material. The material moves around and can hide and reveal things like the headlights.

One of the cool things we saw was river surfing. In Munich, they have bridges that funnel water quite swiftly.

Locals bring surfboards and surf on them, similar to a flowrider.

Here's Anthony teaching Dr Kim how to play Angry Birds. Overseas, Anthony is a Wi-fi addict and can often be seen holding his phone up in the air, attempting to catch passing morsels of free connectivity. He can detect a Wi-fi hotspot from a distance of ten metres, using his enhanced sense of smell.

Dr Kim thought it would be pleasant for us to visit Salzburg in Austria. So we took the ICE train from Munich Haupfbahnhof.

Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart. It is not possible to visit Salzburg and not be made aware of this. The tour buses play Mozart, all the maps point to places where Mozart frequented, and Mozart merchandising is in full swing.

When we left, I felt I had been forever and irreversibly tethered to the ethereal omnipresence of Mozart.

Here are some happy campers in the gardens of an old king from a bygone era.

Overall we had a great time in Munich. It was nice to have the excitement of being in a new corner of the world.
We have some more plans in the works for 2013, as well as my thesis defense and a second baby on the way. Looks like it will be another busy year.

Here's hoping that it will be a prosperous one for all of us.

Seasons Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 09:53:00 +0000

This year has been a good one for us. Ashley is walking and starting to talk. Thus far, she has learned to say "Omma" (Mum), "Appa" (Dad), "Ji-Ji" (dirty) and "Mul" (water).

Our hands are full most of the time, but we count it as a good thing.

Wishing you all a happy festive season and a productive 2013.

Quotes About Aging

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:31:00 +0000

“All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.”

- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Watching children play is one of the most enjoyable pastimes in the world. It reminds us that there are many fun things in life that we adults have long since forgotten about.

Like finding oneself within a pillowcase.

As the leaves fall from the trees, autumn in Seoul begins its departure. We, the Farrand Family of Korea, like to spend the waning days of extended twilight within the confines of Hoam Faculty House, a residential cafe on campus.

An afternoon on a swinging family chair signifies a Sunday well spent.

Baengy has reached the point where she can understand what it means to chill out. Prior to this, her being quiet and motionless while awake was usually just a case of her resting or obliviously waiting for something unknown.

Chilling is generally enjoyed by adults, and one's ability to chill vastly improves one's standing amongst them.

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents."

- Emilie Buchwald

Mrs Farrand is the biggest contributor of reading time to our budding bookworm. I do what I can, but am unable to match her range and skill in voice acting. All my animal voices, be it an elephant, pig, alligator or giraffe, all sound curiously similar.

How does one distinguish between different reading voices for an elephant and a hippopotamus?

Even when reading time is over, Baengy will pick up books and read them to herself. She'll turn the pages one by one and add careful narrative baby chatter to each, even if the book is upside down.

In the photo above, she's reading 1984.

Although we humans stopped digging for edible roots with our bare hands some time ago, evolution has yet to slow down our fingernail growth accordingly. And it recently became apparent to us that our daughter doesn't appreciate having hers clipped. Perhaps she's saving them for a digging expedition.

What we need is an evolutionary process we can communicate more effectively with.

Shopping these days has become a more colourful affair with the inclusion of our very own embedded Quality Control Officer. Baengy will poke, squeeze and occasionally taste-test any goods that are placed within her area of jurisdiction.

Items that are not to her liking are frequently tossed overboard.

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”

- Robert Frost

After months of observation, we've concluded that Baengy loves fountains like a fat kid loves cake. Perhaps it's the allure of dynamic motion or the temperature shock associated with the cold rush of water on a hot day.

I like to think it has something to do with her future career in the broad field of nanobiological microfluidics engineering.

When the nights are warm and she's finished her fountain play, she'll happily sit on our table and munch on her favorite gangnaengy snacks.

Drenched in the fountain of youth.

Anthony Nguyen remains a staunch friend leading a parallel life of parenthood in Busan, with his wife and baby daughter. A few years ago we'd be egging each other on to drink yet another bottle of soju at the barbecue table. These days we hold lengthy discussions on the wonders of baby development.

“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

We recently went to the Seoul Zoo, as a welcome escape from the Zoo of Life that entails the daily happenings of the Farrand household.

The Seoul Zoo is a typical family-oriented quasi-industrial entertainment complex designed to handle large volumes of human traffic while simultaneously selling copious amounts of disposable toys.

In the photo above, Baengy is communicating to the kid next to her "Why are you standing so far away from the action?" in baby eye-contact language. We have observed that she, in general, is not scared of animals. She's had close encounters with all manner of bugs, dogs, sheep, cows and horses without batting an eyelid.

A lady once held a chihuahua right next to Baengy, who was being held by Mum at the time. They glared at each other in a kind of hierarchical showdown of willpower. Seconds seemed like minutes. After an indeterminable period of silence, Baengy broke the impasse by reaching out, grabbing the dog's nose and twisting it counter-clockwise.

The dog pulled back, sneezed and withdrew its head in defeat.

As each sheep stuck it's head out to nibble on the dried grass, Baengy went around sinking her paws into their wool and pinching their ears.

Although in retrospect, I think she probably mistook them for carpeted toys.

She also fed this giant rabbit for some time, before deciding to poke it in the eye with her thumb. The rabbit just closed it and pretended to sleep.

It must be a pretty liberating feeling to be a rabbit that no longer fears giant babies.

After any big day like one at the zoo, Baengy's brain needs to process the treasure trove of new information obtained. She'll pass out in a plethora of awkward positions and remain comatose for approximately 45 minutes.

“The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.”

- Peter De Vries

For centuries, Western medicine advised unsound remedies like blood-letting and mercury poisoning to cure ailments.

On a completely unrelated note, at our local Wondang markets, a new shop selling clinically-untested traditional remedies has opened. Some in Korea have strong opinions for or against such things.

The various forms of alchemy on offer involve live turtles, eels, white snails and silkworms.

Interesting.

Here's a photo of Steve, Jooyeoun and Lienna, celebrating Oktoberfest at Beer Terrace. Funnily enough, our topic of conversation that night drifted toward this blog, and now they're on it.

Is this yet another case of metacircularity?

“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”

- Winston Churchill

Here we are, celebrating the Obama victory in Itaewon with Ian Kim. I can't claim to be very knowledgeable when it comes to politics, although I do find it fascinating. I was happy with the election result, because Obama's stance on most issues are in line with principles I agree with, which include LGBT rights, generally reasonable foreign policy, compulsory healthcare and higher taxes for higher earners.

Taxing the rich proportionally higher might stir up debate in terms of fairness. But excuse the narrow analogy if one may contend that it's probably better to put more money in the hands of the poor than for the same money to be used to buy someone another Ferrari.

Ian Kim is Daniel Pak's cousin, whom I have known since our middle school years in Adelaide. Ian has grown into a rock of a man with strong values and ideals, contributing a substantial amount of his own money toward the Obama campaign.

“The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime.”

- Pink Floyd

We're pretty sure that Baengy is going to follow Ian's example and grow into a rock of a lady.
She already has strong opinions on the quantity of rice she will eat at any one time.

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Here's Baengy and mother, visiting the outdoor area of the maternity ward where Heather will give birth to our second child next Spring.

Time is just rocketing by these days.

And for our final photo today, the columns above are Homeplus virtual supermarkets found in the subway stations here. Instead of stocking products on shelves, pictures of various grocery items are displayed. You can use your phone to take photos of the QR code underneath any product that you want to buy and send it to the Homeplus website. Within a couple of hours the goods are delivered straight to your house. It reminds me of that old song "Video Killed the Radio Star."

A sign of the times really.

Here in Korea, as the weeks turn into months and the groceries turn into pictures of groceries, I can't help but wonder whether the correlation between my increasing age and an accelerating decline of the familiar is something worthwhile to mourn.

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.”

- Andy Rooney

Wriggle One's Hips

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:43:00 +0000

We here at Lee's Korea Blog have never been shy of the catwalk. We've also been quite fond of dog walks, when the opportunity arises. No matter the flavour of walk you're into, this post is dedicated to educating our valued readers on some of the biggest names in the baby fashionverse.

One of the labels causing us the most excitement this year has got to be Wriggle One's Hips. This outstanding lineup from none other than the extraordinary designer Von Incognito is characterised by sophisticated chic motifs and minimalist pastels. You may notice that the four animals on the front of this piece are all facing rearward.

We noticed it too!

Hot on the heels of Wriggle One's Hips and demanding star attention is the exclusive upcoming haute couture label, Ducks are Good. We immediately fell in love with the loose silhouettes and summer palettes of this season's releases. Modeling this piece is one of the biggest bangs in fashion history, Big Baengy, who now meets all requirements of the Institute for Modeling Ethics (at least 15 months of age and weighs more than 8 kilos).

An irresistible combination: the latest Ducks are Good t-shirt, with matching Duckling pants and Apples jacket.

Pure genius!

Fruity Cutie makes its much anticipated return to Farrand Fashion week, after it's successful debut at last year's event held in the fashion hotzone of Living Room. This much-coveted label has released its hottest lineup inspired by Polish gypsies, who have been known to eat watermelons.

Unless you've been living under a rock and not paying attention to any of the biggest tabloids for over a week, chances are you've already heard of the Nameless Brand. Just to clarify, the brand itself isn't called 'nameless', but of course, is referred to by that name because there are no tags or branding present on their items. Is this perhaps a cheeky designer's nod toward the immaterialist views of Irish philosopher George Berkeley? We like to think so!

The floral print on the green pants has been executed perfectly. We sure hope they release it in adult sizes before next summer, or we'll have nothing to wear.

Whoever it was that first uttered the phrase "the night is young', most likely said it because they couldn't stop thinking about these pink pyjamas from Winnie the Pooh.

The wrap-around stylings and bold colours are a dead giveaway in identifying the designer's obvious penchant for samurai futurism.

This matching two-piece with chef's hat and apron brings hints of comic nostalgia to the catwalk, as we hilariously recall the outrageous mishap that occurred when two minor celebrities wore this exact same outfit to the 2008 Oscars. We remind our readers that such embarrassment can easily be avoided by employing your very own fashion consultant from LKB Fashionistas, quite a worthwhile investment considering the endless benefits to be had.

Another label subjected to much anticipation this year was Traditional Hanbok Inc., who did not fail to impress the A-list guests by again revealing their deft hand at couture-quality finishes.

Our photographers were out on the streets all week, busily catching up on the latest trends in celebrity fashion. Seen here is Ashley Farrand, fooling no-one as to her true identity while she attempted to shop anonymously at E-Mart in a light cosmopolitan summer blouse. Apparently she thought that her Michael Jackson-inspired sunglasses would hide her from our camera clicks. The fashion diva has got to do better than that to escape the radar of our shrewd photographers!

Having settled down from the plume of scandal surrounding her crying outburst in the Subway, we also spotted Ashley at Robert and Jisun's wedding. These photos by our undercover photographer had the critics unanimously raving throughout the fashionverse. It seems that with her sheer gravity of starpower, Ashley is single-handedly attempting to bring back the long-forgotten combination of mini-skirt, hoodie and balloon.

Here again we see Ashley hitting the streets of Gwanak-gu in plain view. Our offices were abuzz for days after receiving this photo, showing her choice of giraffe shirt and blue stretchy pants, a riot of colour and wit.

Rumor has it that she was needlessly obssessing over her choice of socks before venturing outside in this outfit. Our fashion analysts have concluded that it was a bold choice that seems to have paid off.

These latest paparazzi photos appear to have caught Ashley off-guard as she sits in a car with her third boyfriend in 3 months! We can't help but point out their matching feminine-masculine sandals, as Boyfriend Number 3 hurriedly tries to start the car and escape our camera flashes.

But not before we managed to snap this front-on beauty! It seems that Ashley has a thing for clean-shaven guys with strong arms. We noticed that the car also has a painting of a car on the bonnet, which is a very fitting reminder of the vehicle type. One thing that puzzles us though, is why there are two steering wheels. Is it a sign of their imminent parting-of-ways? We hope not!

And to Ashley we say, "Although your daddy doesn't approve of your new boyfriend, he says don't come home too late!"

Funny English #6

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 06:04:00 +0000

My time here in The Korea has been both burnished and brightened by grammarly rules bent, and others broken, courtesy of our enduring friends on the peninsula.

For those of you unacquainted with Funny English, it's a delightful documentation of instances of English that this young blogger finds amusing.

This happy message on a vending machine greets subway commuters every morning at Nakseongdae Station.

Here at Lee's Korea Blog we wish all readers a feeling fine day, everyday.

The chefs work very hard in this restaurant.

You can almost taste their efforts.

This enigmatic zen kōan continues to confound teams of monks in the Korean highlands.

Here in Seoul, we can cookies. But unfortunately we can't grammar too well.

As a person who considers myself somewhat internationalised, this chess set is essential for handling the world's inescapable globalisation.

One might be forgiven for thinking that a simple spell check could have picked up the errors in 'Seoul Metorpol itan Government'.
Before they carved it into a metal mold for manhole covers.

And placed 4500 of them all over the city.

This old poster has been left in our building's elevator, and is written mostly in Korean hangeul. Fortunately for the non-hangeul readers out there, the event's name is spelled out phonetically in English.

One only needs to ask "How can I get to Cantata UBOOSASISA?"

Approximately half of my time at university is spent doing research. The other half is spent methodically deciphering translated official documents that I need to fill out.

Here's a note that I found on my desk one afternoon, left by our lovely admin staff. It was referring to an invoice problem for our office chairs.

This is our university mail client. Especially around lunch time, I like to send many Ham Messages.

There are many suspicious backronyms in the world of university student clubs that appear to contravene the purposes of choosing a backronym in the first place.

This one, SOCSOC, is one of the finest examples.

The popular K-blogger Roboseyo may be interested in a pizza that was named after him, from "Elnopim Pizza".

Snapped while on the move, deep in the cavernous batcaves of Sillim E-Mart's underground parking lot.

The politically correct term would be 'Parking Personless Office.'

The disposable cup industry in Korea contributes to approximately 20% of GDP. The remainder is composed of the Parking Personless Office industry and Robster Pizza delivery.

What we're looking at in this picture is the delectable image of fried chicken in the middle, with cherry tomatoes strewn across a picnic table in an idealistic vision of what will happen the moment such chicken is purchased for only ~~9,000~~ 7,000 won.

Although I guess the 'Siandard Oil' box in the background is a simple spelling error, the more pertinent question would be "Who garnishes their fried chicken with black gold?"

Here's an example of an excellent, but terrible motto.

Found on the front cover of the KTX Magazine.

And this is what you wake up to if your baby daughters consume too many beans the night before.

To lead us out of this episode's Funny English is an amazing one-piece retailing for only W10,000 at our local Wondang markets. These days, who wouldn't want to be known as a Truck Furniture Maker?

The previous episode of Funny English is available here.

Have a feeling fine day!

Another Little Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:55:00 +0000

Heather is a happy 9-weeks pregnant with our second baby, who is going by the fetal name of Ga-Ga.

This photo was our first glimpse. We'll be expecting our newest little one in late March/early April next year.

The name Ga-Ga was chosen by Baengy, who is developing into quite a big Baengy indeed. Heather and I were both stumped on a placeholder name for our newest family member, after all, how can you top Big Baengy?

After dispensing with suggestions including 'Small Baengy', 'Big Baengy 2' and 'Baengy of Reasonable Size', at dinner we turned it over to the original Baengy who was toddlering around the table. When we asked her what her sibling should be called, she simply stopped and said "Ga-Ga".

So, Ga-Ga, we very much look forward to meeting you in the new year.

How to Feed Babies

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:20:00 +0000

Blogcrastination

noun.

The act or habit of, putting off or delaying blog posts.

Ex. He dearly loved to blog, yet his blogcrastination led to very sparse posting indeed.

Of late, this blog and I have come to an agreed framework of sorts. A roadmap for peace. A six-point plan or a four noes and one without.

Whatever one may like to call it, it's a way for us to coexist in peace together. The problem with blogs is that once an author endeavours to cultivate an online following, it feels somewhat uneasy to neglect posting for long periods of time, leaving your possibly still-existent readership base with a void once filled with your mediocre ramblings on life in the conventional lane.

Thus a conflict ensues between the forces of time management and those derived from the imagined expectations of one's audience.

The agreed framework hinges upon the idea that as long as readers continue to jingle the sitemeter with daily visits, Lee's Korea Blog shall continue, but only as time permits. In other words, nothing changes.

But it's official.

One of the other reasons that blogging has become sparse these days is because all of my photos are of Baengy. So if that's what you want to see, hey, you know where to come.

As someone somewhere famously once said,

"I have nothing to offer, except blood, toil, tears, sweat and Baengy photos."

As you may recall from biology class, babies require sunlight, air, water and nutritional sustenance in order to survive. While administration of the former three can be fairly straightforward, the proper feeding of babies can require years of practice.

For the average human baby who is busy building a bitsy burgeoning body, teeth are non-critical luxuries with a high calcium cost. With the elongation and strengthening of bones also in full swing, such valuable mineral resources become thinly spread.
Baengy hasn't developed molars yet, so she can chop things with her incisors, but she can't chew. To help her out, we do a bit of parental preparatory pseudo-chewing, which consists of us manually mushing Baengy Rice in a bowl with a spoon.

Baengy Rice is very much like normal rice, but Mrs Farrand adds more water and some other goodies like miniscule bits of tofu and vegetables. The result is a commendable concoction of pasty pebbles.

Now there are many ways to get food into a baby's mouth, but there are only a couple of ways to do it that are sustainable for a parent's mental health. You see, nearly every baby is fascinated with everything for Two Golden Minutes. The key to accomplishing tasks that are longer than two minutes in duration is to distract them long enough. Even if you manage to cram food into a baby's mouth after the two minutes have expired, if they're bored, they just dribble it out onto their clothes. That's why Baengy is holding a spaghetti jar lid in the photo above. I have become reliably confident in lids, most of which extend the Two Golden Minutes by an order of magnitude.

And because each baby will only allow a specified number of spoonfuls to enter their frontal crevasse in any one sitting, one needs to optimise the volume of food going in on each run. This necessitates paying attention to the architecture of the rice on the spoon, or as I like to call it, the rice-chitecture. You'll notice in the photo above that the amount of food is clearly suboptimal. One needs to really pack it on there more like a champion.

Here's one I prepared earlier.

Note the look of apprehension on Baengy's face, in full knowledge that an enormous dose of ricey goodness is coming her way.

This is after the spoon has been retrieved for reloading. If you're wondering what happened in the middle, just imagine an abstract blur of mouth, teeth and spoon.

This was one of our daughter's first experiences with eating barely solid food. The food wasn't hot, so I guess her expression of disdain was more reflective of the repulsion of consuming anything but milk.

A slight improvement occurred over the next few days. As babies learn to eat, parents learn the intricate art of feeding.

These days Baengy has learned all sorts of new tricks. She can spot her favourite foods by sight alone, imbibes fluid from an adult glass and has developed a screeching affinity for nuts and berries.

Her favourite food would probably be spaghetti and/or peaches. Both of which she manages to obliterate by squeezing through her hands and smearing onto surfaces within her general vicinity, like some kind of culinary graffiti.

We like this chicken noodle place near our house in the Nakseongdae area. They sell a massive chicken kalguksoo for W6,000, which by general rules of geometry would typically not be consumable by a single person alone.

The owner of the place is this halmoni, who always comes and sits with Baengy for a while, and often times carries her off triumphantly to tour the kitchen. This particular photo was taken back when Baengy was in the Chubby Checker phase of infantile development.

Now she's well into the Lanky Legs phase.

Last winter was six months ago, which certainly was a long time ago, but that is when we went to Cheongpyeong. Cheongpyeong is one hour east of Seoul, in Gapyeong county.

Every signpost in the photo above is pointing to a different pension. It's reminiscent of the crossroad intersection scene in that non-existent book, Alice in Pensionland.

In Korea, a pension is not what retirees get by on, it's like a holiday house for rent.

We stayed for two nights in a pension complex called Over The Mountain. It was a nice place, but a more accurate name would have been 'At the End of a Dirt Road, Near a Mountain'.

Away from the busy roads and sloped roofing of regular Korea, we huddled in our cement cell blocks, warmed by combustion heating.

We ate a barbecue dinner pack, which was one of a few things orderable from the local store, the name of which was, fittingly, Store.

The mountain air was crisp and punctuated by short bursts of profound realisation.

In the mountains of Cheongpyeong, all is possible.

Here's a frozen waterfall in the frozen Botanic Gardens of Cheongpyeong.

And here's Mrs Farrand near a frozen waterfall in the frozen Botanic Gardens of Cheongpyeong.

Baengy now holds the distinction of quite possibly being the only Korean-Australian baby to have ever slept through an entire hike through Cheongpyeong's Frozen Botanical Garden.

All in all, we rather enjoyed our trip to Gapyeong county. We also enjoyed the transition back to normal civilisation, facilitated by a cup of boiled water seasoned with powdered instant coffee. It was delicious.

Here's Baengy and Heather checking out the newest kid on the block, Anthony's daughter Khalisi. She was born with a full head of hair, which is a source of envy in the world of babies.

Khalisi is around 8 months old now and growing up fine. We expect that she and Baengy will get along like a house on fire.
Right before this photo was taken, Khalisi informed me that she is a fervent reader of Lee's Korea Blog and has been dismayed at the recent lack of posting.

Hopefully there won't be too much blogcrastination before the next one.

See you soon!

Turning One

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 00:28:00 +0000

Three hundred and sixty five days after catastrophic translocation into the world of bright lights and cold air, Baengy turned one. In the beginning, a faint awareness of environment and self coalesced as mixed feelings of warmth or discomfort were liberally applied by unseen hands of immeasurable strength. As the world continued to turn, it was observed that objects afar became less blurry, things nearby could be grasped with hands, and milk could be summoned through vocalisation of the hunger pains arising from the stomach area.

Babies become noticeably more human at twelve months of age. At this milestone, any new kind of food is first inspected before being eaten and the two large people walking around the house become known as omma and da-da.

Heather and I do what we can to raise (but not smother) and mother (but not spoil) our little bundle of joy and wonder. It's an infinitely fulfilling learning experience, as Baengy drags us, kicking and screaming through parenthood.

First birthdays are big events in Korea. As such, a meeting was held between the ladies of the Farrand house, in which it was decided that a trip to Busan would happily fulfill all familial expectations of the (Heather) Jung family.

After all, Busan is where the largest concentration of Jung's choose to reside.

It's also where the joy of soap bubbles can be shared with fellow infants graduating towards toddlerhood.

The house of Jung halmoni is the agreed location at which various family offspring interact under the collective watchful eye of seasoned caregivers.

Offspring are free to eat and do mostly as wished, save for a few hard rules.

Eating of fruit: allowed

Eating bits of rubbish: not allowed

Clapping of hands: allowed

Slapping each other's faces: not allowed

Baengy is the fourth of five granddaughters in her family chapter. The benefits of successful infant-politics are vast, and include access to used toys, as well as the transfer of intimate know-how concerning their operation.

The eldest granddaughter is Ji-Ye, who evidently derives much humour and satisfaction from blocking camera shots.

It wasn't long before we had Baengy hanbokked up and ready to go. In Korea, the first birthday often includes a dol ceremony, in which various articles said to symbolise future life developments are laid out on a table. For example, a pen can symbolise academia, money can symbolise wealth and a piece of string can symbolise a long life. The first-birthdayee is then placed in front of the table and reaches out for an item, that will supposedly foretell their future happenings. Baengy usually grabs whatever looks interesting, and she reached out and grabbed the money.

I guess that means we can retire early.

Although an early night was had, it seems the festivities lasting until 8:30pm were sufficient to induce deep daytime sleep the following day. Heather and I used the opportunity to relax and recharge.

The simple act of falling asleep at the right time of day can be a priceless gift. Like all parents who know that such occasions are not to be trifled with, we let the sleeping baby lie.

One and a half hours of paradise later, Baengy was up and learning about flowers.

Traveling on a high speed train with a high maintenance baby is both exhilarating and exhausting. Parents attempting to do so are advised to pack plenty of snacks and plenty of patience.

We also had a small gathering in Seoul at the Hoam Faculty House on campus. Drinks and mischief flowed freely.

On the right is Ji-An, on a reciprocal visit after we dropped by on her first birthday a few months ago. Her father, Joe, is a fellow Nanoomite who runs ZenKimchi. They're currently organising some exciting Food Tours in Korea.

If you're in Korea and looking for something different, I recommend checking them out via this link.

All in all, Baengy's first birthday was a resounding success. It was my 30th as well, which was nicely convenient. But once a baby is begotten, one's own birthday becomes decreasingly relevant. I guess that's a good thing.

Thanks to all the well-wishers!

Moving House in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:44:00 +0000

One heartwarming general rule of thumb is that most kids will someday grow old enough to look after themselves. In the meantime, sleepless nights endured and food throwing events inflicted ensure that all parents pay the price for daring to persevere. But cutting through the relentless barrages of baby bombardment exists an arcane instinct continuing to power the minimal energy requirements needed for a civilised amount of patience.

Hence the continuation of the human race.

Every once in a while, Baengy learns a new trick. Some are taught, while others seem to materialise from thin air overnight. Not more than a few moons ago, we discovered her feeding herself.

We watched, astounded. While she just gave us a look that said "Yes?"

The intellectual development of human babies is driven by endless short-lived curiousity in all things forbidden. Then again, I guess it's easy to see why a champagne bottle might be more enticing than her regular barley water. Holding Baengy in this photo is Jinkang, who is also expecting.

The word expecting is rather nice. Although if indeed the Korean Farrands find it pertinent to produce further offspring, we will dispense with the word 'expecting' and instead focus on 'physically and mentally preparing'.

But babies do have their rewards. Mostly it's to do with wearing hats.

Baengy's favourite book is called Pizza Tiger.

Synopsis: An anthropomorphised child tiger extends warm invitations to his compatriots Eudyptes chrysocome (penguin), Ursus arctos (bear) and Giraffa camelopardalis (giraffe) to eat pizza. Much to their dismay, household ingredients are insufficient. Together with mother tiger, the four animals (who would normally not be in such friendly association in the wild) go shopping for ingredients. Due to differences in opinion as to what deliciousness entails, they choose strawberries, fish and the inexplicable Korean guk-soo (noodle soup) as ingredients. The story ends with mother tiger executing a culinary improbability by producing a pizza that all animals enjoy.

When I read it to Baengy, I enjoy pointing out the inaccuracies.

Earlier this year, we were offered accommodation in the Seoul National University family apartments. It's much cheaper and closer to the lab, but not quite as nice as our old place and not big enough for three adults. We had to part ways with Jang-Ho, Heather's brother, with whom we had been living. He now has a new place not far from us, and word on the street is that he has a new girlfriend.

The tabloids are going nuts.

For every itch that arises in Korea, there are numerous companies who specialise in scratching. Most can be found online, and these days for companies like removalists there's a peculiar reverse-auction method available. As a customer, you can post online what your needs are (expected moving date, address, amount of furniture etc), and different companies will ring you and offer their lowest bid. A few removalist company reps visited us in the days before the big move. One of them was a 60 year old guy who told us that he had been moving furniture in our area for over 30 years.

Then along came a younger representative from a different company who told us that he moves furniture faster and cheaper than the old guy we had just met.

In the end, the company we chose sent three men and a lady to our house. The price was W700,000, but we didn't have to pack up anything. All the clothes were still in our wardrobes, blankets on the beds and utensils in the kitchen cupboards. You can pay a cheaper price and do all the packing yourself, but we wanted to take it easy. Two of the men set to work piling our stuff into large blue boxes, while the lady went to our kitchen and started recording how everything was stored.

I think the third guy's job was to stand outside, smoke cigarettes and make sure nothing went wrong.

Because most Koreans live in apartments and because most apartments have small doors, nearly all furniture extraction on the peninsula occurs by means of skycrane.

The move went fairly smoothly, with the removalists even making our beds and hanging our pictures on the walls. They had drawn plans of where everything was stored in our old place and unpacked it all as accurately as they could.

Meanwhile, Baengy played some tunes on her baby piano to help us settle in.

Our friends from Adelaide, Damien and Susan, left for Australia around the same time we moved house. Whenever longtime expats head home, it's a great opportunity for a virtual garage sale. We picked up quite a few things, including their car, which runs on pure enthusiasm rather than gasoline.

We've named her Sunny the Sonata.

Prior to moving, we were a bit concerned about how our little offspring would fit into a change of abode. Babies will cry when they're bored and cry when they're overstimulated. Baengy just spent the night sitting quietly and staring at the new surroundings.

But early in the morning, she was up and happily chewing on her favourite gangnaengy rice puffs like nothing had happened. She's either a very flexible character, or somewhat forgetful. We like to think it's the former.

For those moving house in Korea, we recommend saving yourself the hassle of packing and unpacking. Pay a little more and all you have to do is stand around and watch. You can find the removalist auction services by searching on Naver for the term 이사경매.

Happy moving!

Product Review: Boba Carrier 3G

noreply@blogger.com (Lee Farrand) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:56:00 +0000

"Give me a place to stand and I will sling the Earth"

- Archimedes, perhaps.

It's not often that the Product Review Bell tolls ominously down the hallowed hallways and into the sprawling offices of LeesKoreaBlog.

*Donnnng!* *Donnnng!* *Donnnng!*

But indeed it does, from time to time. At which point some kind of product review usually occurs.

This story starts in the early spring of 2012. Outside, bouncy Korean sparrows chirp cheerfully in the warmer air. Sunlight twinkles through dewdrops on newly budding leaves awakening from winter slumber.

And long after morning nappies have been changed, a solitary baby sits in quiet contemplation.

We shall call her Big Baengy.

"Hello, what's this?"

As if by some miracle of postal express, a strange device Designed in California appears by her side.

Upon touching the plastic buckles and closely woven fabric, it expands gracefully to reveal its true Function.

It is a harness that can be used to ride Mother.

Much like how one can ride a Banshee, if harbouring appropriate courage.

Courageous banshee pilot, with appropriate safety headgear. Note the facial expression of confident exhilaration.

A sling is a device for carrying that which would normally be carried by arm and hand. This frees them for other important activities, like resting or administering gentle reassuring pats to a baby's bottom.

But our newest device is no ordinary sling. It's the Boba Carrier 3G.

The G's, I assume, stand for Gentle Gentrification (of the) Gwanak (area).

The Carrier is a comfortable and customisable carrier of cids (kids). We previously owned a sling whose brand shall remain nameless. Suffice to say, this one is better.

The Norwegians have a saying: Bad is called good when worse happens. And so in the case of slings encountered by the Korean Farrands, I guess we could say: Acceptable becomes undesirable when super-duperness appears.

Why so much fuss over a simple sling, you inquire?

For those happily unacquainted with Baby-Related Backpain, Newborn-Associated Nausea or Infant-Induced Insomnia, anything that eases the predicaments of parenthood is worth its weight in gold.

The Boba Carrier is thoughtfully designed and surprisingly comfortable. It's kind of like a Ferrari, I imagine, except affordable. The padding is in the right places and it fits the wearer snugly like a good shoe. And the clips all clip like clips should clip. That is, with smooth and easy action, yet reassuring sturdiness.

And the design is good. There are other styles available from the same company, but the main strap on ours can be flipped over to hold newborns. That means only one sling is needed per unit offspring.

If you've seen a sling or two before, well the Boba has two hidden pockets in the front, a handbag clip on the side, the dangly bits all tidy up nicely and the secondary clip on the upper back slides far enough to be opened and closed without dislocation of a shoulder.

If James Bond needed a sling, I'm pretty sure he'd use one of these.

Most importantly, this sling distributes more weight to the hips and less to the shoulders.

Which means that happy parents and gleeful babies can venture further on foot to more exciting destinations.

The other day we went slinging out in good old Nakseongdae Park. I couldn't help but wonder about the extra victories possible if General Gang Gamchan's horse had worn a Boba Carrier instead of a regular saddle.

Einstein once postulated that a chair, a table, a bowl of fruit and a violin was all that one needed to be happy. My recommendation would be: a lovely wife, a lovely baby, a lovely sling and a lovely park.

If you have a baby or know someone with a baby, have thought of having a baby or know someone who is thinking of having a baby, then buy a Boba. They ship fast and have excellent customer service.

The best place to get them is via their website: http://www.bobafamily.com/

Happy slinging!