Stropping Around Korea - Namhansanseong

Namhan Mountain Fortress is about 24 km southeast of Seoul and mostly consists of a wall running for just over 8km around Namhan Mountain. The wall has four gates and within its bounds are several temples and a brace of restaurants.

After the pleasures of travelling derived from last weekend i planned another outing, this time to Namhansan. What i didn't plan on however was the overnight snow that made walking both dangerous and a tad frigid. I ended up on my arse several times.

To be honest I hadn't intended on walking so much. I thought I would head in the general direction of something interesting, get a few snaps and get back to someplace warm but the mood took me and i found myself looking down over a city far below, shivering uncontrollably and quietly proud of myself for taking that extra step.

Stropping Around Korea - Jipyeong / Gudun

After a busy Saturday i decided to head out of the city for a breath of fresh air. I'd read an interesting review of recent trip taken by another blogger so decided to follow in his wake and check out Jipyeong and Gudun, tiny blips on the Korean landscape.


There are three trains running each day in the direction i wanted to go and because of prior commitments i was just in time to catch the final run of the day, the 7pm. Having little idea of what to expect in the way of places to stay i was feeling a little nervous. I formulated a plan while we were getting outside the boundaries of the city; once i got close to my first destination i would start looking for the bright lights of a Motel and jump off.


It sounded good but not knowing how close i was until i actually got there proved to be a slight hic-cup. We passed a place that had welcoming bright lights close to the station but i decided to stay on and see how many more stations it would be until mine. It turned out to be two. Now i would have to wait until the next chance came. Five stations later i made my break in a place called Wonju. A tall building in the distance promised the comforts of sleep.

In the morning, feeling well rested and a lot more relaxed i got back on the train and headed back the way i came. My first target was a place called Jipyeong, in which the largest building turned out to be the train station. The town itself was small but not so small that it made it any easier to find the brewery i had come to see. After repeatedly having to stop and ask i walked up to a fairly run-down old building with little in the way of proclamations of it's long and respected history.


Makgeolli is or rather was an integral part of the Korean daily life. An alcoholic drink made from rice, it's popularity has come and gone. But for me, who is more used to the delights of cheap vodka, it has become a pleasant if not welcomed way to spend an evening. So because of my fondness, it seemed only right i should delve a little into it's history, meaning checking out an 80 year old brewery and buying a few bottles to take home.

From there i boarded the train once more and headed to Gudun, a 70 or there abouts old train station built during Japanese rule. It's point of being will soon be taken away when the train line is straightened out and the station by-passed. what better time to pay a visit when it's still in use.

My first Baseball Game: Bears Vs Twins

I've never been one to enthuse over baseball. Never had the urge to buy season tickets even after my several season stint at playing softball. But here i was sitting in the relatively empty stands screaming my guts out in support of the Bears on a cool Saturday afternoon. It turned out to be a pretty exciting game with the Bears taking a five nil lead until the top of the sixth when the Twins came back and scored 6 runs. It was down to the bottom of the nineth and a slide into home that could have saved the game when my voice started to give out. I was chuffed with my free ticket and my time well spent.

Lomography Store in Hongdae, Seoul

With my first look inside the store i was happy to discover a few of my images adorning the walls.

This is Wolfgang Stranzinger sitting in the newly opened Lomography store in Hongdae. The store was officialy opened two days prior, on the 5th of March, 2008.

More Snow From My Neighbourhood

These first two photos are from a little park in Yeoido. Here the snow actually managed to stick around longer than puff or air.

These next two are the view from near my apartment. It had snowed the day before and the houses in the distance are still dressed in their virginal best.

Jozua's Farewell

Estelle and James show another use for a fork.

The most interesting cake that was purchased to feed the teeming masses, moments after the candle was blown out and the speaches made.

Diane looking relaxed in front of the camera.

Jozua with glass of wine in hand wondering how long it would be before he could make a run for the exit.

Grace and Lindsay scrunching up to get into frame.

Diary of a Would-be Filmmaker Part 2

PC-Bangs are glorious places when the smell of smoke isn’t getting to you and the noise from the million little clicks on keyboards aren’t pounding in to your hangover or even the constant pow-pow, bang-bang from what ever computer game is currently fashionable is quickly driving you insane. None the less, PC-Bangs are glorious places when you want to get out of your tiny apartment and there’s no place better to go.

So here is it I find myself on a dwindling Sunday afternoon, feeling sufficiently rested and a tad restless. I have that slightly chuffed feeling. I’m chuffed with myself because I finally finished the first draft of my short film. Now, in the book is when they tell you to step back from it, let it marinate then return to it in a few months and see what you really think. Stuff that, I can’t wait that long.

At the moment my script stands at 18 pages. You might not think that sounds like much, especially when you look at it and see the well spaced dialogue that chews up the pages. When you are sitting on the other side of it however, looking at the task ahead, it seems like Everest.

When I started I was going great guns. I worked through all the development stages and reined myself back from attacking the guts of the script before I had a better understanding of what I wanted to say. When I figured I was ready, I started working through it scene by scene and before I knew it there were twelve pages I was pretty happy with. That was when I hit a wall. There was one scene I was afraid of doing, one scene that seemed too hard to shape. The notebook remained closed and the fear of not finishing grew.

Days past and little progress was made. I’d pick up the pen and read through what I’d written, make a change here or there but still not have it in me to attempt the climatic scene. I’d almost resigned my idea to the large scrap heap of ideas littering other notebooks and cobwebbed corners.

On Monday of this week I changed tack. I told myself I didn’t need to do it all in one hit, I could hack away at it a little at a time. I started typing in into the computer, cleaning it up as I went, trimming scenes and dialogue until I got to that final scene. On Tuesday I wrote a few lines, on Wednesday I wrote a few more. On Thursday I scribbled out a few and trimmed the fat. On Friday I panicked and left it alone. On Saturday I worked on it during the course of the day, my excitement grew and the final line came closer. Then there it was, 18 pages of a short film. From a simple idea I worked it through until I had produced my first draft. On Sunday I gloated.

Diary of a Would-be Filmmaker Part 1

As I sit here eating Dok-pukki from a street-side vendor and doodling away in one of my many notebooks, I thought I'd share with you the journey I have recently undertaken. Not the one where I moved countries and came to live in South Korea and teach English but the one where I hope to find that long sort after dream, to become a filmmaker.

I had an idea and as ideas go this one seemed to to have more legs than others. They come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes it is so hard to tell which ones I should latch on to. The fact that I'm still currently a would-be filmmaker and not an actualized filmmaker should tell me pretty clearly I’ve been latching on to the wrong ideas or going about developing the idea in the wrong way.

So anyway, I had this idea and jumped ahead and wrote five or so pages of dialogue. I called it dialogue back then, (several days ago) back when I thought a screenplay centered around the stuff. Now I'm of a different mind. You see, for the past few years my creative endeavors have revolved around theatre where dialogue sings and is the stuff you hang everything on. Not so in film. After learning this fact from a handy dandy little book, you'd think film school might have gotten the idea across, I took a few steps back and started to flesh out my idea.

I wrote a step outline, I got in touch with my main characters, identifying the protagonist is not as easy as it sounds, nor is formulating an antagonist. In the past I've told myself that I don't need to comply to age old structure, that is as readable as dirt, you play in dirt you get dirty, but there is something to be said for using that structure to take an idea, a faint half notion of a glimmer of an image, and turn it into something more.

Right now I have a much clearer idea of what I want to say, of how I'm going to say it and who is going to do the talking for me. The character interviews have been conducted, the step outline has been followed by a scene outline and several pages of new dialogue have been written, not in order, but because I have a clear structure I can now work my way through the scenes as I see fit. First draft, here I come!

Post 104: 070507 An Audition

On Saturday morning i made my way south of the River Han to the Express Bus Terminal Station and left via Exit 5 to walk along a busy street to find my eventual destination. The third story office off of MK Pictures. The reason for my trip, an audition for an up-coming picture.

My audition was scheduled for midday, the first of around twenty people they would be seeing. I arrived a little before 11.30am just as one of the crew was arriving to open up. The office itself is a high-ceilinged maze of smaller offices that had long since seen better days. Stacks of cannisters were piled against walls beside boxes of unknown contents. Wires ran this way and that along the floors, over stains and gound in dirt. There was little to adorn the walls save a poster in a back office proclaiming a past success. I was shown into a small space and left to learn the dialogue i had been given the day before.

I knew little about the production apart from it being a sports movie. After about 20 minutes i was ushered into a larger room where a young bloke who spoke english with a distinctive American accent greeted me.There was a single chair sitting in the center of the room and along the far wall ran a desk, behind which sat said speaker followed by the Korean who showed me in. He took up the camera and i was asked to proceed.

We began with me introducing myself, acting background as well as sports background. We then ran though a couple of short segments until it was discovered not all the dialogue was sent to the prospective actors to learn. I then moved onto a larger monologue taken from a Kurt Russell movie. I finished with monologue from The Tempest that has been sitting in my head for a couple of years. My hand was shaken, i was asked if i could be available for a weeks shooting at the beginning of July and bid farewell. Audition over. I now hungrily await their call.

Post 102: 160407 Katya

Being gone from New Zealand for so long, the biggest regret comes in not seeing your family change, grow, evolve over time. It's the events in ones life that make a person who they are. My niece is growing up so quickly and changing every day. It's these important steps that i have missed that make being away the hardest.

Post 100: 120307 Early Morning Walk

It's about to turn one thirty and I’ve just returned from what was to be a brief night out at The Wolfhound in Iteawon. The Wolfhound is an Irish bar hidden on one of the back roads and down a slight hill. It's the place i find myself most regularly when out drinking. It has recently been converted from a single story pub to a double, with pool table, darts board and plenty of cheap beer. The menu is very western and their Cheese Delights are to die for.

Roisin and I went there this evening to join in on Trivia Night. We arrived to late however, the bottom level was full meaning if we wanted to play it would be standing. Not thinking that was a good idea we headed upstairs to find Stephen, an ex work mate and his parents enjoying the last night of his parents holiday in this welcoming country. We found ourselves a few seats and joined them.

Since Trivia was not to be, Roisin and I played darts while we waited for the football to start. Though when it did start we paid little attention. Roisin has taken quite a shine to the darts. After Stephen and his family had left we settled in to watch the Rugby, England were playing France. We were joined by Kevin, a Texan whom Roisin became acquainted with the previous weekend.

Darts were picked up again while frequent glances were made to the projected screen. Roisin found herself cheers for England for the first time in her life. If they won then Ireland still had a chance of winning the six nations championship. As I walked past Phillies, a bar closer to where I live I managed to see the score from their big screen. England had taken the lead at 16 – 15.

It was just after the resumption of the second half that I made my exit and walked my merry and decidedly sober way home. I found myself wanting to take up a camera and document and commentate the walk from pub to doorstep. Not an exciting event I know but hopefully an insightful one for the folks back home. I desired for them to know the small details of my life in Korea. Simple things that occur every day.

I don’t have a camera so that didn’t happen but the commentary grew in my head and as I passed each object of note or place I’ve entered the experience was related. Then it occurred to me that all these small journey’s could be recreated. Much like a small project I did while at Tech of the bus journey’s I made to Tauranga to meet Louise. These small moments of time fascinate me. Boring I know to most but insightful because it is in these moments where we all live.

Anyways, now I find myself sitting on the floor of my bedroom logging on to the net via a wireless connection of a neightbours to impart the thoughts of a late night walk home.

Oh it is here I should mention that this weekend saw me attend an interview for a job I later turned down via phone as Roisin and I walked in to Iteawon and an audition for a film to begin shooting in May. The audition went well and ended with the first AD saying he would definitely be seeing me again. Hopefully that will be the case.

Post 96: A World Awy

Well look at me. Here i am back in New Zealand for a few weeks for my first kiwi xmas in four years.

It's been a crazy ol' time in recent months. Me given the shaft from the job i'd worked at for 14 months. Me calling the cops on them to mediate a few disputes. A few part time gigs to line my pockets with a little extra cash. Me fleeing the country, heading to Thailand to watch scary snake shows and even scarier shows involving razorblades. In somewhere in there a play was born and opens on the 1st of Feb 2007.

There's a bit of work to do admittedly but i think there will be a play of substance beginning its run in a theatre on the grounds of the Hanyang University. It is set for a three week run and hopefully plenty of folk will turn out to be treated to a little slice of western drama in the murky darkness of a Korean winter.

We'll see.

Post 90: 111006 Sokcho & Seoraksan

Last week in South Korea was Chusok. I don’t know a lot about Chusok apart from that it’s a national holiday and we get plenty of days off work. They call it the Korean thanksgiving, taking place at harvest time and involves dancing, games and giving thanks to the ancestors.

For me it was a time to get away from the apartment and head to the coast, climb a mountain and check out some distant temples. I went to a town called Sokcho, a kind of beach resort town on the east coast. We were fortunate to be given a room in a swanky hotel with commanding views of the nearby mountains and the ripe yellow rice fields surrounding us.

I’m not overly impressed with Koreans attention to details, like when we get into our room we find food on the balcony from the previous tenants, an air conditioning unit that doesn’t work and no mini bar. Okay so the mini bar I can do without but the details are what make a place, something the local tourist trade is yet to master. Oh and it s good idea to stay away from the taxi’s. They say their prices are Seoul prices after midnight but paying extortionate prices for a ten minute taxi ride in the middle of a weekday afternoon put me in a sour mood.

Sokcho itself boasted an expo a few years back, the site of which can still be visited and a central tower scaled and a great view of the harbor enjoyed. Right next to that is the IMAX theatre which they seldom use apart from the odd booking so a group can watch a DVD. If there’s only a few interested in watching a film then they wont open it so I’m guessing the locals have lost interest.

Right in downtown there is a very impressive market, larger than the one in my current hometown. As you’d imagine for a seaside town, there is plenty of fish in every shape and size and many other sea dwelling edible stuffs lining stalls and flopping in dirty tanks.

The main reason to go to this particular town however is its proximity to the Soraksan National Park. Inside which are a network of walkways, temples, a gigantic Buddha statue, restaurants at every altitude, mountains in their rugged beauty and the mass of sumptuous trees that cover them. Not to mention the squirrels at every turn.

We spent several hours exploring the slightly less than congested walkways and made our goal a temple cave where outside sits a several ton boulder that the locals delight in wobbling with constant shoving. We’d hoped to take a cable car up to another mountain but by the time we went to get out tickets there was a several hour queue and the day was already getting too long.

As a signifier to the pleasure found in our time in Sokcho, I enjoyed the drive back to Uijeongbu just as much as my time there. It was an enjoyable drive.

Post 81: 300806 Sports

As an avid escapist I try to spend a good deal of time in front of the telly watching sports games. Being where I am it's hard, in fact nearly impossible, to get televised Rugby, so I have to make do with football without English commentators, K-1 and other fight style bouts, occasional tennis tournaments and perhaps gold if I find the patience. There’s always the badminton, table tennis, American basketball, baseball and now beach volleyball but I have never found a passion for watching those games.

My best connection with teams and games from back home is of course the internet but those live play by play snippets really don’t satisfy my enthusiasm. In saying that, I have now added a sports section to the links where you will find teams and players I try to follow.

Post 77: 070806 Photos from the picnic

Post 76: 070806 Picnic in the shade

Yesterday was the last day of my holiday. Nine days with the absence of work. How quickly the time went. My intention was to spend it in the most slovenly way, sitting on the couch or in a darkened cinema, staying out of the heat and trying not to move too much. That was not to be as Sukhee and I were invited to join the staff of the local watering hole on a picnic.

My idea of a picnic and the Korean notion of one differ greatly. I imagine the cliché of a broad green field, a checkered blanket and a basket weighted down with sandwiches and perhaps a bottle of bubbly.

Damn, just thinking about it, I am riddled with clichés. Doesn’t that make you just a little pissed off knowing that your thoughts come from someone else’s notion of what is ideal. Gives you a little insight on how a population can be controlled. May sound like a leap but when you control the media and stuff it full of notions of your own sense of right and wrong then doesn’t it follow that the population watching said media will pick up on those notions and slowly loose the ability to discern for themselves.

Anyways, the Korean idea of a picnic turns out to be, and this is just one example, going into the foothills of Sarak mountain and sitting at small tables on polystyrene platforms wedged between sheets of metal and plonked on metal frames. These platforms are an extension of small restaurants that in their infinite wisdom have set them up not only beside small creeks but on top of them as well.

Then to keep us out of the harsh summer sun, as if the shade from the trees wasn’t enough, the whole scene is covered in tarpaulins strung in spaghetti like web-works to those bruised and battered trees.

A pool was made nearby which teamed with artificial life, blow-up buoyancy rings, five foot sharks and beach balls. It seemed everyone and their dog, yes there were plenty of pet dogs lulling about, had traversed narrow roads and clotted small car parks to enjoy a summer’s picnic beneath the tarp.

So that was how the last day of my holiday was spent. I didn’t go for a swim like most others from our group but played Go-Stop as we waited for the food we ordered that never arrived and drank the beer we’d brought with us.

Post 73: 030806 Photos from Gyeong-ju

Post 71: 010806 Gyeong-ju

Here i am in the home of the Shilla Kingdom. The place that many local poets look upon as the height of Korean society, the utmost expression of self, a time when Koreans lived as Koreans and acted as Koreans would when not under the yoke.

Sukhee and I took a nice 5 hour long bus ride to get here. Arriving just before four in the afternoon we were greeted by a kindly man in his air-conditioned car. We'd pre-arranged a driver for a day while here, to show us the sites and let us in on the local secrets. Money well spent if you ask me. He picked us up at the bus station, took us to a hotel to get checked in then drove us around to a few places of most spectacular beauty. We ended in a German styled pub that housed it's own micro brewery and a group of singers from the Philipines, three girls and a guy who sang a mix of pop songs (western fare) and local hits. The beer went down a treat, it's hot out there.

We are now back at the hotel, polished and ready for a good nights kip before the kindly gent in his air-conditioned car picks us up at 9am for a full day of site-seeing. I've already tired the battery on my camera and it too is currently recouperating. Photos of course will follow as soon as i can upload them. This computer in our room has lost the means with which to plug in.

Post 69: 250706 The Photo at last

What is up with this site, when sometimes it won't let me upload photos. Anyways here is the crappy photo of a few of the guys i played football with on Monday night. I must have been at least ten years older than them but i still wasn't the oldest out there.

There will hopefully be five of us heading down tonight. We might even make our own team. Ah i've missed this for far too long.

Post 68: 250706 Indoor at last

I came to South Korea in April of 2003 I think it was. Not long before I left I played a game of indoor football with a team I had been with for some years. When I got here I was hoping to find, start, play indoor football with little or no break. As simple as moving from one field to the next. I’ve been waiting and hoping that long. Well tonight my waiting came to an end.

Last week as my girlfriend and I were walking along the back roads of the town around us I stumbled upon not one but two indoor football stadiums. How excited was I? I waited over three years to play football here, to pass a ball, to save a goal, to cheer and dare I say it, even to yell. Tonight I got to do all that. Not so much of the yelling I suppose, there was no ref to yell at nor was there my brother to fight with as we played.

The field itself is smaller with goals about as wide but coming up to around the chest. There’s no height limit on the ball but it doesn’t do much good with the goals so low. You can’t score from outside the half and you can only kick with the inside of the foot, so no taking the opponents head off. But it’s just as fast and as with everywhere, there those one or two players who can run rings around you and score from anywhere.

There were three of us who went down, Steve, Trevor and myself. As of Wednesday there will be five. At first we weren’t sure how it would work, us not having a team and all. As long as you pay your 6 bucks you can play the whole night should you still be standing. Games are an hour long with a single half time, no quarters. Basically if you’re there and keen to play, you jump on a team and start messing around.

I certainly felt the year since my last game, if truth be told I was feeling it after the second minute. That didn’t stop me from tearing up the field in search of the ball occasionally. I was admittedly slower but after spending a bit of time in the goal got the feel for it again and managed to make a few decent saves and when out in the mix of it, managed to send up a few decent through balls for others to score. I didn’t find the back of the net myself, mind you I rarely found it when I was playing every week.

I have no idea what the score was as it wasn’t kept but that didn’t matter in the slightest. Not having a ref meant there were few stops, just a constant peppering of the goals, a constant hunt for the ball and a constant sweet. I loved every minute of it.