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Get your own Free Home PageTowards the end of 1998, my girlfriend faxed me an advertisement from some mob called KASTA, the Korea Australia Science and Technology Association. It seems that every year, KASTA flies a group of Australian science and engineering students out to Korea and arranges for them to work for a Korean company for a month. As I was in the process of finishing the final rewrite of my PhD, I felt that getting some industrial experience with a world famous company would be just what I needed to land my dream job.
To apply, all you needed to do was write, in 300 words or less, why you wanted to go to Korea (answer: So that I would have something else to put on my resume.) and send in a photo. (Presumably so they could choose the good looking ones.)
On the 3rd of January, 1999, I was flown to Seoul in South Korea. As expected, it was really cold, at least compared to the 35 C that we get in Australia at Christmas time. Luckily I wasn't too dumb, and had packed enough winter woolies to get by. For later weather, see here and here.
This is where I'm supposed to put a dramatic shot of the icey Seoul airport. But Korea doesn't allow you to take photos of airports, so you'll have to use your imagination. Rodney (another Australian) was accosted by the police when he tried to take a photo of Seoul airport.
From Seoul it was off to Po' Hang, where I would be working for RIST, the Research Institute for Industrial Science and Technology. RIST is the research arm of the Po'hang Steel Company (POSCO). POSCO is the second largest steel manufacturer in the world and is also involved in a lot of other manufacturing areas. RIST is a large research organisation with over 600 employees at the Po'hang site. The site itself is colocated with the POSTECH university in Po'hang, the site of the POSCO steel works.
And I am writing this in Korea, at the RIST. And yes they have a computer I can use. And a scanner, and a private printer, and a guillotine and an image maker (which I don't understand yet) and a whole bunch of stuff. It is only -5 at the moment, but the heated floors and double glazing keep indoors toasty warm.
Of course when I got here I did not know what I would be doing, and neither did the RIST guys. So I went home (a nice little flat, but with a place to take your shoes off at
the entrance) and slept. (I couldn't sleep on the plane, never have. The seats are just too upright. So it was a good thing they played movies during the night (Ever After (A Cinderella Story) and the new Jackie Chan movie)) Everyone else was asleep. And got annoyed at missing Jackie.
Eventually they did have a project ready (why are there cracks in these pipes?) and so I had to wait for a lab coat and ID badge so that I could actually go into the Labs and start looking for answers. All the equipment was familiar enough, though the computers are all in Korean. I have to remember the position of the buttons that I have to push. No problems yet though.
And I got to sample the food. Including the famous kimchi. Kimchi isn't that hot (spicy). But I'm not sure I like it anyway. It is after all, boiled cabbage served cold. There are restaurants available for all meals. At the moment we have to pay about 1000 W (A$1.30). It is very difficult to get the fine bones out of the fish with chopsticks. The green (Ginsing?) tea was very nice.
RIST put us up in this block of flats.
Not that I had an apartment to myself. There was another Australian, (Rodney) a Frenchman (Jerome) and a Chinese guy too. But we have separate rooms. I got the smallest room because I got into the flat last because my boots took so long to take off.
The Frenchman (Jerome) is OK and his webpage can be visited here but the Chinese fellow has only been seen twice, and that was very late at night by people who were drunk. Basically the Yeti lives with us.
The weather in Po'Hang was cold too. The days reached a maximum of about -2C, while nights dropped to -15C. At least until it started to snow.
During the week we have to work, but on the weekends (well from Saturday lunchtime) we can do whatever we like, so we have been travelling around and seeing the sites. On the first weekend we travelled to the legendary tourist city of KyongJu. This is the ancient capital of the Shilla dynasty, which first united the Korean peninsula into one country. So we got a tour that took us to all the significant sites, except one, and a bunch of tourist traps. One tourist trap consisted of a bunch of models of, and souvineers of, a famous Buddhist statue.
Indeed if they had skipped the souvineers and models we could have visited the actual statue of Buddha. But other than that it was a good tour.
One constant feature of the place was the enourmous tombs that are pictured to the right. (In the forground are the foundations of a ruined palace.) These were established by the early Kings and Generals of the Shilla dynasty who first unified Korea.
Another common feature were the huge bells kept in the Buddhist temples. These were cast out of Bronze (sometimes with a human sacrifice thrown in) and then rung by striking the side with a log.
The only problem that such bells have is that the very low temperatures of the Korean winters can move the bronze to below the brittle/ductile transition. So ringing the bells in winter can result in tiny cracks forming. Subsequent rings will cause the cracks to grow until the bell breaks.
The roofs of these temples or pogodas are also very interesting, with a great deal of detailed work that reminds me of the similar buildings in India.
Next week we had another weekend of travelling around the country. Luckily Korea is so small that a 90 minute bus trip, (about Brisbane to the Goldcoast,
which most Australians consider to be the same place) will take you a
quarter of the way across the country.
So on Saturday we went to Pusan. Accidently. See we were meant to be
going back to KyongJu, to see the big statue of Buddha that is in this
underground temple there. This is the only big site that we did not get
to see on the previous tour, and all the Koreans we spoke to reckoned it
was actually the best thing. Because I was waiting for an electron
microscope to be free I got the Saturday off so we were able to catch a
bus to KyongJu and meet a friend of Rod's who then drove us to see the
statue.
The statue was rather impressive, situated in a large underground tomb
and looking out to sea in the hope that it would repell Japanese
invaders. (Ever note how the Japanese history is always talking about
the constant threat of mainland invasion. And the mainland history is
always talking about the constant threat of Japanese invasion. Like the
French and the English I suppose.) The Koreans were hesitant when I
asked if the Statue worked. I can't actually show a photo of the Statue, because photos are forbidden, as they are inside all the Buddhist shrines, which is reasonable enough.
So this is a picture of the bell tower out the front of the grotto itself.
Then Dr Kim said that he had to go to a meeting in Pusan, so the next
thing you knew we were in Downtown Pusan, apparently in the sleazey bar
and expensive shoe shop district. (I have yet to see any of the famously
cheeap Korean shopping. Electronics, Clothes and shoes are much the same
price as in Australia, just with more Corderoy.)
We did however get to see the colourful cabbages that are planted in traffic islands to provide decoration. I guess this means that if anyone gets really hungry they can just grab some Kimchi.
So we wandered around for a while, trying to find a cheap alarm clock
(none) (needless to say, out of my 4 travelling alarm clocks I had
packed zero). And eventuelly had dinner at a baguette shop and found a
bus to take us home.
Then, on the morning of the 19th, it started to snow. Admittedly it was very wet snow that mostly melted on contact with the ground, but it was snow. One result of this was that the temperature came right up, to above freezing. But the next day started a period known in the Korean calender as the Cold Patch, but nothing much came of it.
On Saturday the 23rd I went to Taigu (3rd largest city in Korea) and from there I (Eventually, Taigu has 4 main bus stations so we had to go from one to the other, and when we got there we met some guy who spoke English and he told us that the bus stations had changed and put us on a train to the right station, but when we got there (cursing the out of date Lonely Planet the whole way) we found another guy, and he told us that Lonely Planet was correct, so we had to catch the train back) caught the bus to Heinsa, the site of the Tripitaka Koreana, the Korean copy of the scriptures that Tripitaka brought back from India. (Monkey was not mentioned) We were however a little late, so we got there as it was getting dark. We never actually got to see the Scriptures, except glimses of them through the slatted walls of the storage room. But this did mean we got to see the evening ceremony, with the beating of drums, the chanting and the ringing of another giant bell. This was all though the gloom of a snowy nightfall.
Then we caught the bus back, after guiding some lost Koreans off the mountain in the snow and dark. Then we had to get back to the original bus station, which we figured we could do by train (we had walked in from the first bus station in the morning, to see the city). However the train DID drop us off at a bus station but this was the Easternmost bus station, which is called the South Station. We wanted the East Station, which was to the North West.
So we caught a Taxi to the right terminal, and got there at 9:06 pm, 6 minutes after the last bus to Pohang leaves. Luckily it was running late.
On Sunday I slept in and then wandered around the Waterfront of Pohang. I hadn't seen the beach before, it was filthy, covered with broken glass and plastic and middens. Which is out of keeping with the rest of Korea that I have seen. I then encountered a great big breakwater jutting out into the sea. Someone had installed a rope so you could climb out onto it, which I did, and was then able to walk out to the lighthouse. On the way there were people fishing and gathering seaweed.
Then I walked home along the river, which was noteable for two things, the tide, which was coming in at a rate faster than I was walking (though I reckon that if I was down on the mudflats with the tide coming in at me, then I could have moved a bit faster). Secondly, there was an unwarranted number of bikes in the river. Some of them were quite corroded, but a few looked very fresh. I know that if they were in an Australian river, some kid would have them out before you could say "free bike". Especially the motor scooters. Very weird.
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