Playstreet: Google Street Alternative

While I was working on research for an art project I came upon this site that allows you to see imagery of Korean streets. It works sort of like how Google Street View works, but a little bit more kooky.

Playstreet allows you to look at several hot-spots in Seoul, including Jongno-3 and around Gangnam.

The area on the bottom is of course your map view and the blue lines indicate streets that have been photographed. You use the top panel to scroll down the street left to right.

To get to a different part of Seoul click on the upper link

 It's quite fun, except doesn't feature enough people in my opinion. When you do get the occasional pedestrian their head is blurred out, but perhaps this adds a surreal affect in the long run.

You can tell the creators mushed together photos in a landscape mode, due to that cars sometimes get chopped off and buildings appear hacked up.

 If you think this site will come in handy for you than great. I found it a good tool to show my family just what Korea really looks like. Mostly gray square buildings with millions of signs on them. My dad concluded that they probably built that way since buildings with just 3 or 4 floors don't require much steel. I suppose I should have showed him the streets of Gangnam. ;)

The Great Vacation: Cornish Pasties

The next day I decided to take JH around one of the historic downtown's in the area. Already I could tell he was mesmerized by the houses and lawns.

We made our way into downtown Grass Valley, where JH first purchased a box of cigarettes and then we headed over to a used bookstore.

JH found a food book that he liked and then we looked around more at the city's buildings. 

For lunch we stopped at Cousin Jack's Pasties, which specialize in a local tradition of Cornish pies or pasties. These are pronounced past-ies...like in the past. Not to be confused with those tantalizing pasties. 

The history goes that back in the mining days companies started to move away from river mining and into the underground type. They needed a big workforce for this and knew that miners from Cornwall, England were really good at it. So they brought these men and their families over here. Their wives would cook them these pasties, which were basically like a meat pie, and place them in tin canisters to take down into the mines. The canister was tiered and had about 3 levels, in the middle was the pasty and on the bottom and top were either soup or tea. Inside the mine the men would place the canister on top of a lit candle and the soup at the bottom would heat up, essentially warming up the pasty. 

I shared all this with JH as we enjoyed the local delight.

Sometimes you hear from Korean folks how they traveled to America and ended up not liking the food. Well, pardon me, but if you end up going to McDonalds and other pretty commercial type eateries than of course you are going to come back unsatisfied. That is why I took JH to this local place that had both history and a delicious menu. Accompanying the pasty was a home-made lamb soup. Yum! (I wonder if I can make these out in Korea...they seem very simple to make.)

After lunch I took JH over to my high school to not only walk down memory lane but let him see the difference between American and Korean public school institutions.

 He was extremely impressed with the football field and track, remarking how very few schools have such an item. I couldn't help but think how I took all of this for granted when I was there.

Of course I showed him around the art department...

Visiting the high school was fun and we checked out a little neighborhood nearby where I knew there was a point where you could look out over the foothills.

Then we headed to a grocery store to pick up a few items for the week. JH enjoyed the shopping and I showed him some eggplants.

That night, for dinner, I cooked up Tofu Jorim and this time made some jiggae soup. Although I think I didn't get the most flavorful of jiggae pastes for the soup. hmm

 The jiggae cooking...

But the family enjoyed it and I think JH got a kick out of eating a somewhat Korean meal at an American home.

The Great Vacation: Heading Northeast

We headed out of the city on a foggy and soggy day, while crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge. 

Before we continued on the freeway we stopped at a vista point to get a good look of the bridge and the bay.

 The result of JH's encouragement:

As we headed out of this area JH caught site of this double-decker bus. Many of the pictures you will see in this post come from his camera. As we moved Northeast he was curious about many things.

As we got further to my family's neck of the woods, we stopped at a Korean grocery store to pick up a few things like kimchi and noodles.

 It was an interesting grocery store as parts of it were Asian products and the other half were Russian. A little further up the highway and we stopped at one of my family's favorite burger joints, called Ikeda's. Actually, this place is a burger and health-food grocery store in one. In addition, it makes for a popular pit stop for those heading up to the snow resorts near Tahoe.

 

I had a cheeseburger and JH had a chicken burger.

We got to my dad's home and settled in. JH went around the house and took pictures of several things he found interesting. Like some origami ornaments and our spice-rack.

From here my posts will contain our adventures around my hometown. I was worried he would find himself bored out here since it isn't as exciting as San Francisco. But it turns out he wanted to see "real" America and enjoyed seeing what small-town life is like.

FBI Christmas Present

I haven't mentioned it, but when I got back from our vacation in SF my FBI background check was waiting for me. It was a great Christmas present as it put my worries to rest. As soon as I got it I packed it up with a cover letter and sent if off to the Secretary of State to get the apostille seal.

Since this was my second time doing this process I thought I would share with you guys the results. The result page is kind of different from last time,  since I requested the FBI to put their seal on it. The new FBI background check result page looks very official. Below for you is my scanned copy, with of course the naughty bits blurred out.

As you can see it looks very official and certainly a lot better than what they use to give out, which was your fingerprint page with the stamp "NO RECORD".

Along with this document was a letter telling me about their new process and why they don't issue an apostille, but where I could get one.

In "official" speak they basically tell you to send your document off to the Secretary of State following their guidelines to get the apostille.

The big question for some is, "How long does it take to get the FBI Background Check back?" To put minds at ease this part of the process, from FBI receiving to coming back in my hands, took about 9 weeks approximately. Keep in mind this was during the holiday season so they likely had a few days off here and there.

I still feel it is important for anyone who is at a point in the Korean job market, whether thinking of renewing or transferring, to go ahead and get this document. You really never know if your school will 100% resign you or whether transferring will go smoothly. If you know your job is coming to end in say 2 - 3 months go ahead and work on getting this document. (It's good for 6 months anyways!) For sure it will make things easier if you get into a situation where you have to get a new visa.

Anyways, I hope this stuff helps other folks out there and I will let you know when I get the whole thing back with the apostille (about another week and a half).