The NORTH PEOPLE

I've been traveling away from my PC for a few weeks (some business, some pleasure), but I hope to redeem your faith in Adventures in Kimchiland by offering up a true gem today.

A little while ago, I met up with a friend to go mountain biking in the hills outside Seoul. As we were getting ready to head out, he handed me a tag from some clothing that he’d purchased during the week. At first glance, it looked like any other clothing tag that you’d find on hiking equipment. These things generally explain how the garment is superior to competing designs thanks to advanced moisture-wicking properties or taped seams or other such features that I didn’t know I needed -- or wanted to obsess over -- until I started reading the tags.

This one from Korean company M2 takes marketing speak to a whole new level. The company borrowed the slogans “Each Experience is Unique” and “Mountain by Experience” from Millet, a French outdoor clothing company that offers some really high-end gear. The jury is still out as to whether M2 is related to Millet as I have found no obvious links between M2 and the Korean Millet site, but I am happy to be corrected on this.

Corporate structure notwithstanding, the real reward came when I opened the tag and read on...

The copywriter doesn’t appear to be able to speak any English whatsoever and has presumably just knocked up a spiel in Korean and passed it through an online translation engine like Google Translate or Yahoo! Babel Fish. For your reading pleasure, I’ve replicated the text from the tag word-for-word below. All spelling errors and grammatical disasters are courtesy of M2.

M2

MOUNTAIN BY EXPERIENCE

Outdoor Wear

To everybody whom the NORTH PEOPLE it does as a favor together Thank you. Everybody it knows well and the NORTH PEOPLE is not the enterprise which produces only the Outdoor clothing of our country top.

The NORTH PEOPLE when the product which it made with the mind which is honest is satisfied the customer until, honesty, the customer, is the company which it thinks by the natural mail boat. To raise the quality of the product and to become the enterprise which improves the quality of everybody’s obsterical.

Outdoor life and it finishes the best sleep. Up-to date new material development and the other enterprise compared to it will develop the new product first and is trusted and a footlights with the goods which it will receive the effort to sleep lazily it will not conduct.

Don't believe me? Check the images of the tag below (click for a bigger version):

Happy and Joy

Sometimes when living overseas, you're reminded that you're quite a long way from home. It's not a thought that occurs daily, but I was struck by it when visiting Seoul Tower - a communication and observation tower that stands in the middle of Seoul. It was built in 1969 and sits atop Namsan Mountain in the centre of the city, and is visible from just about anywhere in Seoul. According to its website, the Tower offers "a best view", "sweet relaxation" and "happy and joy". I don't know about those last two points, but the first is pretty accurate. Like AMP (previously Centrepoint) Tower in Sydney or CN Tower in Toronto, Seoul Tower offers stunning 360-degree views out over the urban sprawl.

Each of the windows inside the Tower lists the distance to a different major city around the world. It didn't take me long to discover that from where I was standing, it was 8286.57km to Sydney (though I am not sure where they were measuring to in order to get the distance to within 2 decimal places)...

What I did find rather surprising was the fact I was also less than 200km from Pyongyang. The Korean peninsula really isn't a very big place...

Skiing in Seoul

A couple of weekends ago I went skiing with a group of friends to Konjiam - a ski field about an hour south of Seoul. It opened relatively recently and has great facilities including a number of high-speed 6-seater lifts and a good collection of snow blowers to ensure that there’s enough decent snow. Seoul is cold in winter but relatively dry – there’s not a lot of snow in general – but this makes for good snow-making conditions.

I had to get over to my friend's house so I could get a lift but I realised late the previous night that I couldn't fit my skis into a taxi. I considered a few different ways to get over there before deciding I was committed to finding a way to strap my skis, poles, boots, helmet and pack to my little scooter.

It took me about 15 minutes to figure out the best way to do it, but pretty soon I was strapped in and ready to go. I'm sure I cut a fine figure weaving through downtown Seoul traffic early on a Saturday morning, but it worked.

Konjiam is interesting – those accustomed to ski fields in other parts of the world will be surprised by the opening hours. You can ski from sun-up (7AM) to well into the night (the field closes at 4:30AM!).

We got a ticket from 7AM to midday, which was enough to whet my appetite for more later this season. The field has reasonable skiing and the lift queues moved pretty quickly (though it’s pretty flat and the runs are short, I’ll take what I can get so close to one of the world’s largest cities). The hill also has a strictly-enforced skier / boarder limit, which keeps the lift lines moving and means that dodging people on the runs is kept to a (relative) minimum.

I shot this panorama from the top of one of the main runs.

Seoul's somewhere below those clouds.

Snow disposal, Seoul-style

You may recall that early this year Seoul received a record dumping of snow that brought the city to a virtual standstill for two days (pictures here). The temperature has been well below zero over the past two weeks, so the snow hasn't completely melted away yet.

Yesterday was a little bit warmer so some workers were sent out to shovel the snow and clear up the streets... Instead of shoveling it into carts to take away, the workers were throwing it out into the middle of a busy intersection to be broken up and melted by passing traffic! Of course, this quickly formed a slick pool of compacted snow and ice that motorcyclists were desperate to avoid. Genius at work.

Maybe fashion will ask

At first glance, some signs that are written in English in countries where English is not the native language don't make a tremendous amount of sense. With a little bit of lateral thinking you can generally make out what the writer is trying to say, though.

Every once in a while you happen across a sign that defies all logic and comprehension. Perhaps they've been written by a creative genius that sees the world a little differently to the rest of us. Perhaps not. The below sign was spotted on a door to a shop in Seoul.

"{MAYBE} Maybe fashion will ask and the wanting and to be what once challenge will try". Yes. Yes indeed.

Merchandising

I've discovered relatively recently that you can purchase Disney-branded lemons in corner stores in Seoul (presumably endorsed by Disney Korea as they sport an official logo on the back of the wrapper).

The whole idea of co-branding is to try to build interest and awareness for a product with either a new group of buyers or to make your product stand out against competing products. I can't imagine many kids walking into a corner store and begging their parents to buy them a lemon... at least not outside Korea.

Opportunistic

Yesterday I posted about the "once in a century" snow storms that hit Seoul. A friend of mine has just sent me a fantastic photo of a particularly opportunistic (or practical) gentleman out for a little exercise in downtown Seoul yesterday afternoon. At least, that's what I assume he's doing - he might just be heading down to the corner store for some eggs and kimchi.

In a city that rarely salts, plows, or or grits roads, perhaps he's onto something. Opportunistic or practical? I'd be keen to hear your comments.

Hundred year snow storm

Today residents of Seoul woke up to what a colleague of mine described as a "once in a century" snow storm. While we've had a little snow here and there over the past week, it had been snowing heavily all night. It looked like the entire city had been sprinkled with icing sugar, but it brought chaos as people were unable to get to work (in fact, a colleague of mine was stuck on a bus for 5 hours coming into the office!).

The weather is supposed to be clear but cold over the next few days, so we'll see how the roads improve through this week.

I wandered around and took a few photos of this rather extraordinary event. You can find them here.

More Korean Sweets

Korean street food is fantastic. One of the more popular sweet snacks that's available is bungeopang, which is basically a sweet bean filling inside a fried batter. It's really tasty and a great way to warm up on a cold winter's day. They are available in all shapes and sizes, but there's a small stall near my office that produces these fantastic little fish. As a rule, I try to eat the freshly-cooked ones, as the idea of these sitting around in all the car exhaust is far from appealing...

Thankfully it doesn't taste like it looks (my colleague joked and said it was sushi)!

Sweet bean filling! Yum.

Bright lights

This weekend saw Seoul host a round of the World Cup snowboard big air competition.

A huge snowboard ramp was set up in the middle of an intersection in downtown Seoul for snowboarders to compete. It just so happens that my apartment looks down onto the busy square and I had the opportunity to watch the 35m tall ramp come to life over the past week.

The competition was held at night under lights and drew a massive crowd (by some estimates up to 260,000 people over the course of the three days, though I'd say that's a bit optimistic). There were some very impressive tricks on Saturday night, and the final saw a Swiss competitor take out the grand prize.

If you look closely, there's a snowboarder in the air there... somewhere!

Practice makes perfect...