Don't cry for me Margerina

There are a couple of things here in Korea that you would never had imagined it would be so hard to come by back home. One of it would be margarine. Since I do not have a fridge with me, butter is out of the question. Back in Malaysia, numerous brands and flavours crying for your attention, but here, you would be crying to find it.

I have been checking out E-Mart, Home plus and even Hanaro mart here in Busan, not every store has margarine in their inventory. The only option I found so far is from Ottogi, as seen from the picture above. Even if you found it, most likely you won't be getting the whole range, as advertised on their website here.

Also from the website, there is supposed to be a larger 400g size, but what I have found so far is stores only stock the 200g (limited) range. That explains why I have bought 3 in a span of a month, including two from the picture above and one just 2 days ago, the olive oil version. Hmmm.... the company should give me a discount or free sample given that I have bought so many of it.

Ah, one other thing, which aisle or section in supermarket would you think you can locate margarine? Edible oil section you say? That is where I never found margarine. One store "categorised" it as baking product, one placed it near to the chill dairy section, while another store placed it together with jam, peanut butter and so on. It reminds me of the game show Supermarket Sweep, or even Finder's Keeper.

If you look closely at the product information behind the box, you will notice something familiar. See those portion I marked in red, 말레이시아산, which means produced in Malaysia. Apparently margarine here has palm olein and palm stearin in it, despite having picture of soybean, corn flavoured margarine, or even olive oil margarine. What the heck is olein and stearin? According to Malaysian Palm Oil Council, olein is the liquid component and stearin is the solid component of palm oil. Now I see why palm oil is one of the main export of Malaysia. Maybe they should start exporting palm oil based margarine from Malaysia to Korea, given that now they know there is a demand, i.e. Me, in Korea.

It's Spring!

You can feel that spring is finally here. With flower blooming everywhere, but campus flower is a bit slow. Today, I did my weekend walk to Sasang and the picture above was taken at a street near my dormitory. I was in E-Mart and Homeplus both in Sasang, but I had to take a bus back since it was drizzling and I bought too many food stuff again. It looks like there is some mass rapid transit construction going on at Sasang area. Geez, I forgot to took a picture of the construction site. Anyway, here's another photo of the same area close up, except I didn't notice that road sign was blocking the best view when I took it this morning. Anyhow, If I have any picture taken in campus, I might post it in future post.

Welcome Party

Fellow Malaysians have took the trouble to have a welcome party for newcomer like me on the 15th March 2008, at UIT Building 6th Floor. It was rather eventful, given that the time had been changing from 6pm to 6:30pm and later 7pm, but in the end, I have lost track when the event started.

It was also on the same day of my walking tour to Seomyeon checking out 3 bookstores after seminar on Saturday, which it was also my first presentation as well. I was rushing back trying to be on time, as the tentative time was on 7. But all I heard from some early birds, asking where was the party. Geez, so much for rushing for nothing. All I know it was started rather late, until the security guard had to do a force eviction to get us out of the place.

The food was also on the same trend of switching plan, from 삼겹살, to pizza, and in the end, just fried chicken. Apparently the pizza place was no longer in business, as I was told. Food was rather good, especially the 간장치킨.

We had some foreign students, Ting Ting from China, and 3 Japanese girls, Yunoue Mika, Arima Erina and Natsuaki Kumi. Thank you for everyone who has taken the trouble to have this welcome party. Looking forward to another round of eating.

My Version of Busan Subway Map

I have wanted to do this for quite sometimes now, finally, I have completed my first version of Busan subway map. After reading and seeing a few versions of subway map, including from travel guide books, commercial and non-commercial alike, it just wasn't right for me. So I've decided to come out with my own version instead.

Instead of doing a graphic image, I decided to do a vector version using Visio, so that I can export it in various form and edit it easily if there is any mistake or changes. My version is inspired by London Tube Map, which I think is one of the best underground map ever.

I have several objectives on my version of subway map :

• All station names will have Korean, Hanja (if any) and English, instead of either one as found in most maps. If possible, do not shorten station name.
• All station names will be printed horizontally from left to right to ease reading. No reading sideways or head turning.
• Future stations will be shown in map with clear indication.

This is my first draft, so if you have any suggestion or found any error, please drop me an email. I might do some touch up and adding a legend to the map later. Anyone interested to have a PDF version, please contact me as well, since I can't upload PDF download to blogger. I understand how frustrating it is not to be able to download a clear subway map, especially one that is suitable to print.

Nakdong River "Walk"

One of my plan to Busan, after going to Dongnae, was to walk from campus to Nakdong River (낙동강 洛東江), one of Korea's longest and important river. Yes, you read it correctly, walk. How far is the river from campus? I took this picture on UIT Building 6th Floor in campus. You can probably judge how far is the river from campus. Since today's weather was great, I decided to give it a try.

Here you can see me happily smiling away asking someone to take a picture for me. But wait, where is the walking story then? That was where the whole episode of me getting into a conversation, and voila, a professor from my faculty which I never knew, being very kind to show me the way to the park. What 'showing' means here is no mere pin-pointing on a map, it was showing all the way until the destination, paying the bus fare for me and asking for direction from passer by for me and leading me to the bank of the river. Meet Prof. Jo Jung Bok, who was a bit shy to take a photograph with me until my persuasion of taking only one photo.

My initial plan was not at this part of the river, but lucky that Prof. Jo recommended me to come over here instead. Samnak Riverside Community Sports Park (삼락강변구민체육공원 三樂江邊區民體育公園)was really nice place indeed. The view of the river was good, the facilities at the park were amazing as well. If you like tennis, inline skating, cycling or even fishing, good place to hang out. Cut the story short, just look at some of the pictures I have taken.

The following pictures show where I wanted to go initially, which was near to Nakdong Grand Bridge. Probably it was still cold and winter like, not much greens, so the places looked rather dull in comparison to Samnak Park. The river line was much further at this section of the park. There was some creek around it though.

Twelve Chinese Zodiacs. No prize to guess which one is mine.

Well, apparently I did walk back to dormitory, although only half of my initial plan was achieved. It's better than nothing, plus it was a rather eventful day given that I knew someone new, and engaged in some Korean conversation, which I can only understand probably half of it, but I was an good way to get around some tricky conversation when I met up with the professor's wife.

How long was it? It took approximately an hour from the Nakdong Grand Bridge until my dorminitory. There was pavement all the way for pedestrian, so it's rather good to walk, except with the heavy flow of traffic, the air might not be as clean. Here's a shot of my university when I was walking back.

Snowflakes

Woke up early this morning, and surprisingly, it was snowing! My first snow in Korea, although I did see traces of snow in Incheon when I arrived, but this is the first time for me in Korea to see it live! It doesn't last that long though, but it was so many years ago since I saw real snow in Europe. If I can get nice shot of snow scene, I will try to take more pictures on it.

Last 2 Pictures courtesy of Hofun.

Here comes the dust!

When I woke up this morning, looking out the window, it was misty, that's what I thought. Moments later, reading on JoongAng Daily news article, apparently, it's no mist but dust. I know this is an annual affair just like haze back in Malaysia, but I still had some doubt about it, so I checked out the Korea Meteorological Administration website, and this is what I found out.

The portion I highlighted in red, shows 구름많음, 황사, which means cloudy, yellow dust. So my doubt was clear, but not the sky. 황사 (黃沙), please go away quick! I wonder what happens to KL. When I left, it was hazy, but Met Service back home stated it was not from the neighbour. Well, hope that in Klang Valley has clearer sky.

Cuti-cuti Busan

Since arrival, I have yet to go anywhere for sightseeing, so I decided to venture out a bit. My plan was to go to Bokcheon Museum in Dongnae (동래 東萊), since every Saturday entry is free. I bought a 1 Day Subway Pass, and head straight to Myeongnyun-dong (명륜동 明倫洞). Apparently, 1st of March is the day of Independent Movement back in 1919. There was some event on Dongnae yesterday, but I did not go near it, just took a look from afar and turned back, as it was not within my plan for the day. Busan has a couple of museum, which you can see it from here. Check out this site first, if Korean is not your cup of tea.

There are a couple of historic site in around Dongnae as shown in the above map. Dongnae was the seat of the magistrate, thus the centre of the town was at Dongnae, until the arrival of Japanese, which has moved the centre of town southwards to the present location.

My first stop was Bokcheon Museum (복천박물관 福泉博物館). The museum displays artifacts about archaeological excavation around the area, especially on ancient tomb which is just right outside the museum on an open pavilion. Although there are brochures in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, most information board inside the museum is in Korean only. There are various form of tomb, which some is explained in detail the steps to create such formation in diorama.

I think the first information board is rather old, since the English portion can easily qualify for The Star's Boob Watch. The actual site of the tomb is currently marked with bushes. If you wish to see the on site tomb, there is one glass dome structure in the middle of the open pavilion to showcase how does it look like.

Not too far from the museum, there is the old Dongnae Fortress. It was one of the large fortress in those days, and the location for such fortress is rather good since it has four hills around it to provide a natural protection. Some fortress gates are restored while some are permanently gone. There is a small museum near to north gate that explains how the fortress was built. Well, here are the pictures.

Once you step into the museum, you will see a famous quote which is constantly repeated inside the explanation within the museum. It was on the wall in the entrance as well.

戰則戰矣 不戰則假我道
戰死易 假道難

First line is by the Japanese troop, saying "If you want to fight, fight, if not, then move out of the way". The response by Korean Song Sang Hyeon was "It's easy to die in a battle, but it's difficult to let you through". Since this museum was set up not too long ago, it has English explanation on the information board, but the very interesting video presentation is in Korean only.

After understanding the story in museum, you can opt for going up to one of the watch tower on top of the hill. See from the picture above, there was where I went, Bukjangdae (북장대 北將臺), which is situated on Jeung Mountain (증산 甑山). If you can't see clearly the wooden structure as shown above, you probably can guess how high was it. At the peak, the view of Busan was rather good. Here's the watch tower and beneath it, is the view of Busan and also the ancient tomb at the bottom.

Anyone of you familiar with Busan Asian Games 2002 will notice the stadium from this view. Also from the top, you can see the Gwangan Bridge. It is also one of the reason why the fortress was built there as it is near to Nakdong river and close to the sea.

Since the day I went was 1st of March, I took the opportunity to take a photo with the Independence Movement Memorial near to Bukjeongdae. Also, there is a really nice exercise park next to the memorial, so if anyone of you cannot afford fitness centre fees, you can have a lot of exercise equipment up there.

Here are some of the places I have visited on the same day as well. One interesting about the 40 steps stairs is that, after ascending to the top, that street is a whole street of printer, just like Jalan Brunei in KL.

A side note, the next day after my museum visit, I was in Dongnae area again, but this time is for the hot spring, which Dongnae is also famous for. Quite an experience if you haven't been into one that everyone is naked. Also, there is a duck bulgogi shop just right outside the hot spring place, which is not too bad, except for the long wait.