Friday, August 12, 2005

Anytime Anywhere

As I blog this, I am sitting in the 'business center' of the Ohmo-gyo Co-Op Residence Hotel in Seoul, Korea. Well, the internet access costs W500 per 20 minutes, which is quite reasonable for anyone to check e-mail and surf the net and blog.

Its been three days since I last touched the PC keyboard, and its ok. I am not addicted to this machine. One thing about the familiar Windows UI is that I can navigate around the Windows environment quite comfortably even though everything on screen is in Korean. If this were a character type environment, I'd be lost. So there's something to be said about pictures / graphics being a universal language of sorts. For example, I couldn't communicate with the restaurant waiter/owner about what I wanted for my dinner last night. The restaurant menu was all in Korean and there was not a picture anywhere where I could point to! So, after some pained attempt to-ing and fro-ing as to what I wanted, I grabbed a pen and drew a fish and a squid. Immediately, the communication gap was bridged and I had my dinner successfully. Truly, a picture is worth a thousand languages!

Ths restaurant is in the neighbourhood, a stone's throw from the hotel, and not in any of the tourist belts. The hotel itself is located in a remote area doted with many small time workshops, not unlike the JTC one-storey factories back in Singapore, around Eunos / Aljunied areas. Its really charming. In a way, it feels like home.

That said, the subway is about 5 minutes walk away and it will take you to virtually anywhere in Seoul. With 9 lines, its much more complicated than Singapore's

1 comment:

Colonial Crest Crew said...

Good point!

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