ISpyShanghai

It costs 1,500RMB (150 quid) to fly return from Shanghai to Seoul right now.

Good eh? I went on Friday.

Seoul is a lovely place, nestled in the mountains, on a Sunday afternoon it feels like a sleepy little village compared to Shanghai.

The nightlife is good though- all little independent bars tucked away down alleys where if they don’t have the tune you ask for, they’ll download it.

I used to live in Korea for 3 or 4 years- I forget how long exactly, this is back when I used to drink too much.

Now I’m a little older and more sensible I try not to go too crazy- in fact I have a strict rule: once the sun comes up, no more shots.

Originally I’d planned to go to the wedding of an old workmate. But it turned out to be far away, and I had a hangover that could fell a tree so I just stayed in the city and stared at the increasingly bizarre outfits of the Korean metrosexual.

The guy in the his’n’hers pink sweatshirt is the butchest looking man in the photo

It’s terrifying how camp the Korean guys look these days, terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, they pull it off and the street fashions are, well, streets ahead of Shanghai. But the levels of camp are off the scale- two examples, the guy below, Bae Yong Joon is one of the biggest stars in the country.

This image is taken from his role as spokesman (honestly, it is a man) for a cosmetics company.

and this (here on youtube) is an advert for a cellphone featuring another two popular stars. Aside from wearing outfits made entirely out of tinfoil, they come within about one Banana Daquiri away from making out at the end of the ad.

Oh and did I mention that the phone they’re advertising is called “Magic Hole“?

If you’ve never been, I really recommend a trip to Seoul- if only for the fact that walking around the place makes you feel like a manlier version of Wesley Snipes.

In the old town of Seoul there is shopping area called Myeong Dong

Myeong Dong

Myeong Dong backs onto a small mountain called Namsan, and on top of Namsan is a TV and radio mast called Seoul Tower

Seoul Tower

Since the views are good up here, young lovers hike up the mountain (or get the cable car if they’re smart) and hold hands as they look out across the city.

They also buy a padlock, write their names on it- and lock it to the fences that ring the tower.

I don’t know why they do this, but do it they do- and in the hundreds if not thousands.

The whole area behind the girl is covered in locks

Did someone first have this idea in a Korean film or TV show? Is it a tradition that dates back for years?
I have no idea.

It’s a charming symbol though- locking the love on there, never to be removed, bonded to the fabric of the city.
Until of course he cheats on you, and you break up. Which is why they have signs up everywhere saying:

"Oooh please take my lock down! I hate him! I hate him!!"

Emma @ Kyeongbok Palace

Ah there she is look, stood in the doorway of a palace called “Kyeongbok” in downtown Seoul.

We were very lucky with the weather during our 3 days in Seoul- blue skies every day, warm enough for a light sports jacket or a wind-cheater. The Koreans are very proud of their 4 distinct seasons and we were there right in the middle of the 2 week shift from bitterly cold to stiflingly hot known as ‘Spring’.

As well as such unique honestly-no-one-else-has-4-seasons!-really?-4-different-ones? weather, Korea is famous for cosmetic surgery.

Hair transplant with your coffee?

I’m told that people from all over East Asia fly to Korea to fix up their eyelids, nose or lady bumps and the locals can barely go a day without having some kind of operation.

In fact, if you live in China, here’s a fun thing to do with your Chinese friends: tell them that you hear Korean women are very beautiful. I bet they reply:

“Only because they have had plastic surgery! They are very ugly when they are born!”

If you hear something else, I’ll send you a 100 dollar gift certificate to spend in the ISpyShanghai shop.

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One thing I wish I could have taken home to join my typewriter collection was this:

Korean alphabet typewriter

The Korean alphabet is phonetic and only has 24 characters, so making a typewriter is, I suppose, fairly straightforwardish.

"James" in Korean

One more thing to show you tomorrow and then that’s it, I promise.

I’ve got a pile of photos from Seoul sitting around on my desk here, as I packed a lot of fun stuff into a short weekend break.

To blast through a bunch of the photos, here’s a slideshow*

*In the hope of avoiding disappointment I should point out that in this slideshow, neither I, David Hasselhof, nor any asian girls are naked.

Update: Hmm, that slideshow didn’t work AND crashed my computer. Removed it.

"It says something about tea. Let's go and buy a Ukulele!"

Here’s me stood on one of the side streets off Insadong.

You see all that squiggly non-Chinese writing? I can read all of that and Emma can’t.
For the whole weekend Emma had to rely on my awesome Korean skills whilst she wandered around like an illiterate child- the exact reverse of my experience in China.

(Hence the manly pose).

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The Korean equivalent / rip-off of The Body Shop is called “Face Shop” (do you see what they did there?). At Face Shop one of the many, many, many men’s perfumes on offer was called Eau de L’Ame.

Not pictured: Essence of Spaz

I was reminded of the scene in Blades of Glory:

Chazz: Hey, MacElroy, was that your routine or a performance of the Cirque de So Lame?

One of Emma’s favourite things about Seoul (other than marvelling as I faultlessly read a Korean menu to her) was all of the cute stationery* on sale

I heart sitting in stationery shops with a hangover

*don’t worry- I checked that it was the wright speling.

She bought 18 diaries, 37 tiny notebooks etc and enough tiny pencils to build a Noah’s Ark for The Borrowers. 

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Here is a vending machine that sells solar powered bobble head dolls.

More stuff tomorrow.

That slideshow is still here if your computer is better than mine.

(Matching hair clips not shown)

If you’re in a couple, then the stress of dressing is removed for you in Korea. On a second date, the guy will generally turn up wearing a cloth sack, a bin liner, or a soiled surgical gown as he knows that the girl will have a matching outfit (shoes, trousers, shirt, ankle bracelet) all prepared for him.

Rumours abound about what happens if a man does not wear the outfit provided, in fact many Korean horror movies begin with this as their opening scene.

Metrosexual (adj)- An adult male who spends more money on shoes than he does on beer. 

In Korea, the Metrosexual is dead and they have taken things to the next level with something called “Flower men”

That man bag is full of smaller man bags

Flower Man (noun)- An adult male who has to wake up at 5am to work on his hairstyle.

Many flower men have to give up work entirely to focus on choosing socks, and ensuring that their outfits match everything they might possibly stand next to during the course of a day.

In response to this, girls in Seoul must ratchet up the femininity of their outfits to the sort of a thing she might have worn to an 8th birthday party in the year 1885.

Rocking that antique doll / "Vampire bait" look for Spring '09

The main reason I went to Seoul was for the wedding of my friends Cam and Sae-Jin.

They’re actually getting married in Canada later this year, but since that’s really far away (somewhere above the USA apparently?) not everyone would be able to make it and they decided to have a bash for their friends in Asia.

The happy couple

The wedding party started in the late afternoon, and since I’d only stopped drinking the previous night at 4ish- I ended up being pretty hammered, pretty quickly. After that it didn’t seem to matter whether I switched from Champagne, to wine, to beer or back again, all of the drinks just seemed to get me drunker and drunker and 

drunker and drunker

and drunker and drunker.

By the time I left I remember shouting at Cam

“Why aren’t you going to wear a wedding ring? You are the worst gay of all time!”

But I’m sure he took it in the spirit of love and affection that it was meant. 

It was a top class do anyway, there was cake, video messages from across the waves, I met someone who flew to Taipei to see Kylie Minogue, and a regular ISpy commentor / multi-linguist named Daegu Owl was asked to translate for a Korean guy who wanted to talk to Emma:

Korean guy- (something in Korean)

Daegu Owl- He says you are very beautiful

Emma- Oh, thanks!

Korean guy- (something in Korean)

Daegu Owl- Now he’s asking if…umm I think I’d better tell him that you’re taken

Congratulations Cam and SJ- and thanks for a great party!

SJ, Sam, Cam

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

You might know this and then again you might not, but either way-I used to live in Korea. I was there for three years and had a splendid time. 

High Heel Scooter

When I first arrived I thought the place was kind of backwards in the fashion stakes- the middle aged men there wear their belts higher than I thought humanly possible, and most of the guys my age had pointy shoes that extended 9 inches past the end of their toes for that Rumpelstiltskin vibe.

Strawberry Slipons

Now though, Korea is something of a fashion leader in asia and it’s very common to see hangeul writing on jeans / handbags and t-shirts for dogs here in Shanghai.

I haven’t been back for a while but I keep abreast of all the latest trends by looking at the flickr stream of close personal e-friend / flickr contact / guy I’ve never actually met Superlocal.

Superlocal’s job seems to involve doing what I do for a hobby: finding weird stuff in asian cities. Presumably in his spare time, he sits in 3 hour meetings about airport information systems.

Shoe Slippers

The photos below are some of his captures from the whacky world of Korean footwear- if you want more, I highly recommend having a gander at his stuff on flickr http://flickr.com/photos/superlocal.

Shoe Tongs

Lord knows we have enough fun laughing at poor english written on t-shirts and signs around China, so it’s about time we had a look at the flip side of the coin.

English people are fascinated by Chinese characters (also Japanese and Korean since 98% of them can’t tell the difference) so it’s very common to see restaurant signs, the odd bit of clothing and (especially) tattoos with characters scrawled on at random.

Emma’s parents have recently moved into a new house where the previous owners had decided a few characters might look nice on the wall of the spare bedroom. Chinese readers / students can have a go at working out what they were aiming for. I’ll play along too:

中  (middle)
A good start here, couple of extra little flourishes at the bottom, but I think the point comes across

开  (open)
Still looking good with the second character- I don’t think we can rule out the possibility of outside help. Maybe they ordered some delivery Chow Mein?

文 (writing, culture)
Not perfect by any means which is a bit ironic considering the meaning-
(did I ever mention that Emma used to pronounce the word “Pronounciation” incorrectly? Not good for an English teacher)

川 (river)
I’m guessing on this one, the random dots and dashes are starting to look a bit like a cross between two codes: Morse and Hobo

? (???)
No idea what this is supposed to be.
The thing about a 5,000 year old writing system is that you can’t just make stuff up when you get sick of trying to copy the writing on your Kung Fu uniform

文 (writing, culture)
Another crack at “Wen” here with not much more success, it’s nice to try and mix things up though, keep the reader guessing.

Marks (for trying): 3.

Samples of my own Chinese calligraphy will be available: never.