Korean Job Discussion Forums

[captain kirk]

Well, I've got one (of course, since I start the thread).
Bucheon is a satellite city of Seoul, on the way to Incheon, under an hour from city center. To get to this place take the subway to Bucheon stop. It lets off at a bustling mall including an Emart, on the surface there. Take a taxi to City Hall. It's about ten minutes by taxi, downhill and a left turn.
What is this place?
I had a job at a haggie in Bucheon and, across the street, was a medium sized white building, very plain, three stories, no windows. And a big 'logo' I recognized. The RCA Victor logo which shows a dog, listening alertly to a gramaphone speaker horn; 'His Master's Voice'.
A sign said 'Edison Science Museum'.
Admission was moderate. The lady was friendly. The place was very quiet, and empty, and had a pleasant 'wood polish' smell. Fragrant, like oiled wood. Standing casually was a friendly guy, not Uni age, not middle aged, in between. He looked like he was genuinely happy and had a secret it was his pleasure to be able to share, something wondrous. Like a trail guide in a national park.
A good looking, contemporary/modern ajumma was there, and her bright, keener ten year old son. They looked like they'd been overseas already, 'well-heeled'. So we all went on a tour with the guide.
Gramaphones. Gramaphones everywhere. All varieties, all gleaming, oiled, fragrant wood, shining, well cared for. The guide operated them. Some read a metal cylinder with bumps on it. Or made in Bavaria, England, and so on.
Once someone came up with a machine which made music, and was affordable, people wanted one. Like we have portable CD players. Here was a range, from different times/years, and also showing the development of these pleasure-giving, music-making, delight-creating gizmos.
It was unexpected, a building full of gramaphones? I got used to it and, following the guide's careful, gentle, and devoted lead, zoned right in.
Right up 'til the present. Because in the last display room, at the top of the building, was a very wide, super bright and clear flat screen tv with giant, crystal clear and powerful speaker system. All custom put together to show the 'state of the art'.
It was a video of the Eagles playing 'Hotel California'. Great song.
Truly an amazing, unexpected kind of place, devoted to Edison and gramaphones.

[eamo]

Korea can throw up little surprises now and then.

One of the roads heading out of Northern Seoul, on the way to the DMZ, has a roadside cafe with a difference.

There are hundreds of wood carvings of the male appendage. Inside and outside. Some small some 10 feet long!!!

I wish I'd taken photos.

[mithridates]

In the �������� building in Jonggak station there's a small museum...the bank was started during the occupation so you can see old-school ads like "Let's save money and kick the US / England's ass!"
The problem is it's written in Korean and Japanese. Anyone reading my post now will have to be trilingual to enjoy it...

[waggo]

[captain kirk]

Here's another charmer (at least I thought so, anyway). So you're at Kwanghwamun intersection in Seoul. On the corner of the four piece pie that is directly opposite, diagonally, the quadrant on which rests Kyobo and the American Embassy. And you head up the street walking away from Chongno. Up the hill, and on the left there, after some 15 minutes walking will be the 'Korean Agricultural Museum'.
Or some name like that. You can't miss it.
It's a medium-large, city-dusty, government-institutional, couple of decades old looking museum building.
There's no admission fee.
The displays are behind very large class windows, like at the National Museum.
But this is all about Korean agriculture, from ancient times up to the time of the ox and plow.
Stone sickle blades for harvesting, at or not far from the neolithic.
And lots, and lots of wooden handled farm implements. There is one which is special. It's a 'stand on' soil breaker for one man. In lieu of a plow. For small fields. Or a man who can't afford an ox.
There's a display on the Korean ox. And how the gene line was hard to find, nowadays, to get a representation of what the old, 'for centuries', Korean ox looked like. But they found one at some livestock market.
The handles of the farmtools for tilling, cultivating are polished with use.
This museum is of modest size, two floors I think, but it 'brings home' the man and ox powered agricultural methods over the centuries. Real contrast (and that's why I'd include it in the 'twilight zone/gently, pleasantly surprising places' thread) to the busy, dusty, hurtling, hectic Seoul city just outside its walls.

[eamo]

Of course I could add 'The Zen Bar', (not real name) in Hongdae.

I haven't been for a good year now but I'll always remember fondly having my mango beer float across the rose-petal strewn, floor-level pond. While ambient music plays almost inaudibly from the gold painted walls. Lounging on the sheepskin rugs.

One night the bartender dressed as one of those Poirot clowns. Just to add more of a surreal feel.

Definitely not what you expect to find in a city like Seoul.

[vlcupper]

[Chillin' Villain]