Oh hello, snow.

Christmas day started out with some nice rain, which was a nice reminder of the shitty weather I’m missing out on back in Holland (well, normally. Of course this christmas they’ve had so much snow trains couldn’t drive anymore and highways were near-empty. Yay). In the afternoon we headed out for a walk ‘n talk, and decided to go to Myeongdong. Turns out half of Seoul decided to do the exact same thing; it was so freakishly busy there was a traffic jam to even get out of the subway (!).

While walking going with the flow for a while, searching for a pizza place to eat (we both got the extreme urge to eat Pizza after watching Home Alone), we soon realized this, too, was impossible at Myeongdong. There were lines everywhere, and sometimes so long people were waiting outside. Unbelievable.

While we were getting ready to head back to the subway to go eat dinner over at Suyudong, it suddenly started snowing. It snowed. On Christmas day. In a country where I was physically present. Fuk yeh!

So we made the best of it and walked around for a while more, of course.

Today (Sunday, 2 days after christmas) it’s snowing pretty hard again, and for the entire afternoon already. The street in front of my house is completely white, love it!

I hope the weather keeps up like this. It’s freakishly difficult to walk on, but so worth it. Then again, judging by my weather widget (right) I guess it’ll be gone soon.

Note to self; Charge my camera!

Review: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Being a big fan of Robert Downey Jr., I had high hopes for this movie. Other than that it’s about Sherlock Holmes (hey), I knew nothing about this movie, but that’s how I like to go in one.

Having learned most of Sherlock Holmes by the weekly Donald Duck magazines I used to read, it came to a surprise that, according to this movie, Sherlock is a fantastic figher. The movie throws you right into the action, and introduces you to the amazingly quick senses Sherlock has, allowing him to plan exactly how a fight will go before it even starts. It might sound a bit awkward, but they made it look fantastic and not entirely unbelievable. He’s just a darn quick thinker, ’s all.

Watson is a lot less fat than Disney made him look, and also a great fighter. This whole slightly more aggressive attitude of both main characters took some getting used to, but in the end worked out quite well.

The cinematography is very nice, especially in some high-paced action scenes. The slow-motion, slightly longer than usual scenes (a la 300) really work out well in this movie. They really managed to make the setting feel authentic, as there was not a single moment during the movie I felt like ‘hum’.

On the less positive side, the movie felt quite long. A few times I felt like ‘ok, wrap it up folks, we’re here now’, only to be pulled into yet another chapter of the story. While I enjoyed the movie, it would’ve probably been better if it wasn’t so long (The movie lasts for 128 minutes, but feels longer). Some of the jokes in this movie felt quite forced, something they really didn’t have to do as Robert seems quite humorous on his own.

In closing, if you’re a fan of Robert Downey Jr. or Sherlock Holmes, I recommend you go watch this movie. It’s a great movie to watch in the Cinema, with quite a few action-packed scenes. The ending not bad, just awfully open-ended. They managed to close the story (or chapter, if you will) opened in this movie though.

Score: 7.5

IMDb | RottenTomatoes

Winter Song (by Rain Machine)

A little over ten minutes long, and literally all over the place, but oh-so nice.

Download (via AllThingsRock), and buy via Amazon or the like.

Oh yes, we’ve got christmas songs here, too.

Courtesy of new guy in the office, who apparently wants us all to get in the christmas mood by playing a what it seems to be quite limited playlist of christmas songs on repeat. Yay.

On a related note; Merry Christmas everybody!

Gu-da

When you notice you don’t notice it anymore.

Being in Korea for a little over a year now, I still pretty much am a rookie. Meeting other foreigners (when I really have to), one of the first questions that are always asked are where are you from, and how long have you been here. I’m guilty of asking that same question over and over, too. I don’t know why, but I guess it’s something similar as asking where are you? every time you call someone on a mobile phone. It doesn’t really matter at all, but you still ask.

Either way, things change. Most often you don’t notice they’ve changed, and those tend to be the good changes. When you first come to Korea, all is good, so to speak. You’re living in this haze of wow, people are so interesting and kind. That wears off after a few months, and then the frustration of the older folks kicks in. Older men and women tend to shove you aside in the subway, making way for that free spot. People start pushing you when their stop comes, whether you’re the first in line or waiting behind 20 other people.

For us rookies, it’s the hot topic we can’t stop talking about. When meeting a fellow foreigner you nearly always end up bitching about these things. After a while, though, you get used to it. You find your way around it, either by just letting things be, or shoving them back every now and then, just to remind them what weight they’re trying to shove aside. Or something.

While still being a rookie, I do feel like I’m getting there. Sure, I mention it on occasion, and I have my days where I’d rather drop my backpack on one of those tiny old farts, but generally I just don’t really care much anymore. You learn and adapt, become one of the fellow shovers, group-huggers and, in some ways, PMP-lovin’ korean ridin’ the subway.

I like it.

A somewhat pessimistic introduction

You might notice how I just jumped the gun and started bitch-slapping folks left and right, before even introducing myself properly. Thinking for weeks on how to properly get started (again) with this blog, I finally decided to just go for it, and keep the introductory yidi-yada for later. Well, later is now! Or, a moment ago, but let’s not get into that here.

Hi, I’m Dave. My friends call me Dave, David, DeeDee or ‘that guy’, so please feel free to call me Mr. Jansen.

I’m roughly 23 years of age, and have been living and (pretend-)working in Korea for a little over a year now. Oh, how time flies.

I used to blog near-daily, but that somehow came to an end. I had numerous attempts to get back in the writing stuff, but it just never really stuck. So consider this my newest attempt, wish me luck.

I experience a lot of things here, in Korea. Some are interesting, some are not. Some are interesting for no-one but me, some are not. Some messages I’ll leave here will be filled with geekiness and lame attempts at being humorous, and some will be more personal, showing a wee bit more of that what is me.

Going through several versions, reincarnations and breaks, I re-welcome you to.. Me. Read ‘n weep, gentlefolks. Read ‘n weep.

Oh, and comment.

While Samsung and LG gently weep.

And so, here we are. Three years in since the birth of Uncle Steve’s Jesus Phone, world’s most technologically advanced country (short of Japan, I guess) can now finally enjoy the wond’rous phone. After months of it’s coming soon now!, it kind of feels a bit too little too late for me, but I’m glad to see the phone here. At first I wasn’t sure how well it would go over here, but with over 60.000 iPhones pre-ordered in the first weekend, I’m guessing it’ll do just fine.

But I digress.

I was reading an article on Engadget, and was both amused and shocked by the responses people left on Samsung’s new amazing new Omnia II. I was fortunate enough to be able to gently stroke one myself, and must say that I wholeheartedly agree with what most people say. This thing is beyond horrible. Mostly because of that near-ancient Windows Mobile 6.5 it’s running on, but I can’t say I’m enjoying the not-all-that-touch-sensitive touchscreen, but perhaps I’m too spoiled with, you know, an actually working touch screen.

The screen itself is very crisp, I have to admit that. Apparently it boasts an AMOLED display, which might explain how awesome it looks. I think it would be a delight to watch HD(-ish) videos on that puppy.

Now, onto the juicy stuff, quotes from a few commenters on the aforementioned Engadget post;

I played with this at a local Bell store up here in Toronto and I was not impressed…the UI was neither intuitive nor responsive.

Honestly this thing is an experimentation in how many bad UI’s and and OS’s you can combine.

I feel bad for all the people waiting for this phone thinking it’s gonna be good.

The sad thing is that someone will buy this.

I would have trouble signing up for a 2 year contract for such ancient hardware, no matter how they tried to polish it by hiding the WM interface and giving it such a gorgeous looking screen.

resistive, slow response, real old technology nowdays. crappy. peroid.

Meh, would have been really nice… 2 years ago.

And also, on a more personal note to the guy making the Engadget hands-on review; How hard is it to control that freaking camera? Turn that auto-focus off next time, pretty please. Tanks.

So, how well will the iPhone do in Korea? Pretty well, I’d say. Competition is near non-existent right now, but I really do hope Samsung, LG, and even the Japanese brands that have been floating around here for ages will kick it up a notch (or six) and make some decent competition for the iPhone. It’ll take some drastic measures to get these people to change the way they think, though.

To wishful thinking!

Marketing Geniuses

See that beautiful border-less TV? A beautiful example of how one should never even attempt to sell things. I quote:

The LG marketing on this literally showed TVs with no border – the TVs looked like they went from edge to edge. However, that marketing has been swallowed up thus far and it looks like LG is backing away from the borderless concept, at least when it comes to talking about the TV. A quick search of the LG website shows that the borderless model aren’t being marketed that way anymore.

Take that, customer! Buy our non-existing product that promises so much and delivers nothing like we said! Somewhere, deep down LG’s laboratories, the Marketing department is grinning vividly, thinking they’ve finally outdone the rest. Pulled the biggest lie. Just keep that darn TV off, no-one will notice the borders. Oh those stupid customers. Mehehe.

(Via CrunchGear — Thanks, Miguel)