Sunday, November 01, 2009

Don't Buy an LG Vacuum Cleaner



Don't buy this piece of shit under any circumstances.

It's the LG V-H852CP hand-help vacuum cleaner and it says "ezMate" on the side.

I bought it because it looked nice and compact, it has a charging dock, and being cordless is a big plus.

A friend warned me that it sucked but I ignored his advice and bought it anyway. I should have bought the larger, bulkier and slightly more expensive Black and Decker.

It started off okay, and I was able to vacuum my entire apartment and then go around the edges using the long pointy attachment on a single charge, and it seemed to work well. Four months later, however, I can cover less than one fifth of the floor before the suction power gets so low that it fails to pick up a pubic hair of average length.

I'm pretty irate about this and will probably go to the closest LG Electronics rip-off shop where they sell TVs for double the real price to suckers who can't be bothered to make the trip to Hi-Mart/Yongsan/Technomart or get on the internet. I doubt I'll get my money back though, as I didn't but it from them and have no box or receipt.

LG (Vacuum cleaners only, I like my TV) are hereby added to my boycott list, joining big names such as Outback Steakhouse Korea (Learn to cook a steak).

Hopefully this post will be found in searches for the vacuum cleaner, so I'm going to include some warning sentences in English and Korean:

Don't buy an LG hand-held vacuum cleaner. LG vacuum cleaners are bad. LG vacuum cleaners are defective. LG vacuum cleaners have problems. LG vacuum cleaner problem. LG vacuum cleaner rip-off.

경고! LG ezMate V-H852CP 사지 마세요! 풀량품. 배터리 안 좋아요.

By the way, I will remove this post if LG gives me a new vacuum cleaner.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Taxi Dilemma

I want to ask the driver to turn the music up, but I know that if I do so, he will probably ask me 20 questions, and I won't be able to hear the song anyway.

That's all for this week. Here are some pictures of 삼겹살 being roasted in an oven in order to be served as 통삼겹살. This place was in the Jognro area, close to Jonggak Station and Cheonggyecheon. This area is by far the nicest in the whole city - if you go to Seoul, stay nowhere else.



Sunday, October 18, 2009

Random Thoughts and Bad Photos

I used to think that my photography skills were pretty awesome, but then I started taking pictures and realised that lenses hate me. These days, and by these days I mean since two weeks ago, I don't even bother to try and make the photo look good, I just aim in the general direction and click the damn thing. Sometimes I don't even bother.

A case in point is when I was waiting for people at Sincheon Station last night and I was standing in front of a chemist with a sticker on the window featuring a picture of a dog holding a syringe underneath the words "Animal Drug House" - an awesome Konglish photo op, but my camera was just too far away in my bag. Then I looked up and saw a row of massive tall jars full of ginseng roots soaking in some kind of liquid, in what appeared to be various stages of preparation. The jars were lit up from behind, there was a reddish glow from a nearby sign too, and the angle from where I was standing was perfect. I knew my photo attempt would ruin the memory though, so I didn't bother.

The following are a collection of photos from the last couple of weeks, in the order that Blogger put them up. Why do they never appear on the page in the order in which I upload them?



They opened a new Dunkin Donuts near me last week. I guess the one 200 metres away is too far for some people to walk. Then a couple of days ago some celebrity guy (이민호 don't even get me started) turned up to sign autographs, hence the crowds of (mainly) women.

I wonder if every new Dunkin Donuts has a similar promotion, or whether it depends on the individual franchisee. I also wonder whether it is worth the money they have to spend on Mr. Boys Over Flowers. I suspect that it isn't. Bold Prediction: This branch doesn't survive for a full calendar year.



I looked out of my window at exactly 3:59am one morning to see if there were any drunk people to look at with my binoculars and saw crowds of normal looking people rushing down the road, some of them holding infants wrapped in blankets. They seemed to all be heading in the same direction so I followed them and sure enough they were going to the nearby church. I later asked a churchgoer about this who said that early morning services are very popular among people who are especially keen to show god how dedicated they are. The church in question, 사랑의 교회 is a gigantic complex which attracts such large crowds of people on Sundays that they have to hire people to direct traffic for hundreds of metres around. You can see some of them holding red hand-light wand thingies in the photo if you look closely. On the plus side, an ajumma selling 계란빵 egg bread also shows up and I'm a weekly customer.

Apologies for the photo. Sadly, it was the pick of the litter.



Behold the famous Hotel Lisboa in Macau. It now looks pretty old and rundown when compared to the new casinos which have popped up around it, especially during the daytime. I decided to stay there because the place made quite an impression on me during my first trip to Macau in 2005. It was a bad idea.

The rooms might have been opulent once, but seemed shabby to me. The lobby had impressed me before, but didn't strike me as anything special this time, and the service at check-in was irritatingly slow. I felt like calling the International Hotel Inspectors so they can come around and strip it of a few stars. Basically the room was worse than my apartment and you don't see me trying to rent my place out for hundreds per night. The TV was tiny, there was no computer or internets (Macau is an internet dead zone by the way, avoid if you have a similar addiction to my own) and the only thing that seemed like it might be cool was the spa bath. Then after about five minutes I realised that spa baths are boring because there is nothing to do in there except stare at your feet and try not to get sucked into the intake vents.

The best part was that I got a free bathrobe. There was a sign saying that if you wanted one they were available for sale from housekeeping, so I made an enquiry at reception, and was told that it would be deducted from my deposit upon check-out. I checked out and when they gave me my full deposit back I asked them about it they just waved it off. Makes up for the miniature TV I guess.

Next time (if there is a next time) I'm going to do what these other guys I met over there did and stay in a sauna for 20 bucks and get free noodles too.



This monstrosity is the Grand Lisboa, and it is without a doubt the ugliest large building I've ever seen, which is a big call from somebody who lives in Seoul. I should have stayed here, as the rooms were cheaper, and decked out Egyptian Pharaoh style I'm told. I also hear that food and drinks are totally free for guests, which would have been good because the food options that I saw included a fully stocked Deli with a team of sandwich builders at your beck and call and a tasty noodle place which had lots of mix and match options.

The Grand Lisboa also has a poker room, which is where I spent way too much time, and where I realised why I used to like playing poker (you meet lots of interesting characters) and why I stopped playing poker (you meet lots of uninteresting characters, and because I am hopeless at the game and lose money). Anyway, the best thing about the poker was that I got a free blanket. They were handing them out to players who were too cold under the air-conditioning, so even though I was fine, outside was a sweatbox, I got one to drape over my shoulders and made a speedy getaway with it once my chips had disappeared.

I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the Lisboa is called what it is in Chinese. While gambling I noticed that Grand Lisboa is written as 新葡京. I know from Korean that 新(신) means 'new', and that 京(경) means 'capital' so I was curious to know what 葡 meant. Unable to use a Chinese dictionary I found out that it means 'grape' in by looking it up in Korean. So Lisboa is translated literally as Grape Capital. I figured that Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, who owned Macau until 1999, must mean Grape Capital in Portuguese also, but it doesn't at all, which doesn't satisfy me one bit. I know want to know whether Lisbon is famous for grapes, if it was known as a grape capital at any point, and who decided that the Chinese for Lisbon was going to be Grape Capital and not something closer to the sound of Lisboa. The fact that Lisboa sounds nothing like 葡京 was the reason that no taxi driver knew where to take me. Yet another reason not to stay in that dump.

By the way, this photo sucks because it was taken out of the back window of the cab on the way to the ferry to Hong Kong airport. The direct ferry link was quite convenient and included check-in servies in Macau. The Hong Kong Airport ferry terminal (Skylink?) was a little disappointing however, run down and poorly equipped, in stark contrast to the rest of the airport. There was a angry Swiss guy, I assume he was Swiss from his accent, his arrogance, and his interest in my Swiss falg adorned shirt, who was laying into a group of scared Dragonair flight attendants, yelling about the ferry link being a disgrace, and Dragonair being the worst in the world. At least we got an airport tax refund. It wasn't long though, until euphoria at free money was replaced by annoyance at having to wait for a poorly air-conditioned bus sitting in the sun to fill up to sardine can bursting-point before leaving for the main terminals.



This last photo is of a moving company at work taking stuff up to a high floor by use of a rising platform thingy. It always seems like a sketchy way to do it, and that a badly balanced wardrobe and a gust of wind could result in carnage.

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Blogroll Update

A proper post is in order, but I've already tired of taking photos of the construction site once a week, and can't think of much else to ramble on about, so that will have to wait.

Check out this video for someone dedicated enough to take 2 photos a day for 17 years. HT to Nick who posted it on Facebook.



Meanwhile, a blogroll update is long overdue. Brad's, Dave's, Nick DW's and Ryan's blogs removed for lack of updates. Oona's new blog The K-Poparazzi added, hopefully it won't go the way of Carlooona, Carloona, and Adopt a Pancake. Dan's blog Pound the Gavel also added, but only time will tell whether he will ever update it again. Finally, I put a link to Korean Language Notes, my favourite blog at the moment. Check out the comment section for fascinating arguments about Korean grammar. Seriously.

Here are some things I plan to blog about soon. I'm thinking that maybe if I add a paragraph about them here, it will motivate me to actually write them, and not just compose them while stuck in traffic on the bus.

- Signboard removals and updates around Seoul. Goodbye neon? I hope not.

- H1A1 Influenza and how it's awesome, mainly because my kids wash their hands now.

- Government campaign to start people walking on the right, and how this affects my subway journeys.

- Funny signs on the subway. I especially like the "No Touch!" one put up by the Ministry of Labor.

- Old rose-selling woman and how and why I plan to become her friend.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Snooze Time



There's been a lot of noise this week, but not much to see, so I thought I'd add a photo of two of the construction workers having a snooze instead. I'd been wondering what the square thing covered in fake grass was for, and now I know - just add a plank of wood for a pillow, and it's a double bed!

I also signed a piece of paper this week that will hopefully make me rich. I was paying my utility bills and they told me that if I signed here here and here I could be compensated for the noise and vibrations from the construction site. I couldn't be bothered trying to read it, so I just asked them if anything bad could happen if I signed, and they said no, that likely nothng would happen, but maybe I would get some moolah. I signed of course, bring on the cash.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Boring Construction Site Photo 3



Digging trucks dig out dirt. New restaurant opens across the street. Ho hum.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Feel Like Shit Deja Vu



This is an old favorite, which I finally got on camera last week. My friend Nick of Best ESL Journals bought one that we saw in Cheonho one day, although I believe his is a light, slightly greenish, blue.

The photo was taken near the front entrance of my school. Note the dirt patch in the background. It was once full of flowers and well-trimmed shubbery, complete with helpful labels providing botanical information, but inexplicably cleared and replaced with a thick layer of fine dry dirt.