tasuki’s blog

[This article contains Korean text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hangul or hanja.]

On Thursday, we left 킹스바둑 early in the morning. 김성래 took us to 서울. We did some shopping in 한국기원, and then went to a baduk club, which was rather empty because of holiday. In the evening, we went to IBA, where we were accomodated (thanks to Mr. 이기봉).

On Friday, we got up rather late, and went to 동대문시장. It was quite crowded, not too clean, and I didn’t feel like shopping. I left our undecisive group behind and went for a walk along 청계천. I was unpleasantly surprised to find the famous 남대문 hidden in a building (when Koreans repair a building, they build another building wrapped around it). Fortunately, 남대문 시장 was open and living. I bought a bulb blower (yes, I already succesfully cleaned my sensor!) and got wonderful 김밥 for just 2000. After that, I spent some time wandering the amazingly crowded and cozy streets of Namdaemun and finally emerged by 한국은행 화폐금융박물관. Then I went to visit 덕수궁, a small but nice palace with well groomed gardens and various tourist attractions. It was getting dark, and after watching an outside musical performance (horrible pop music, but so wonderfully Korean that I just had to stop and listen), I found 경복궁 closed. After buying some rice-based sweets (huge bag for 5k), I finished the day taking pics of random passersby in a random nightlife area. A cute girl who studies dancing helped me resolve a problem with subway (the line bifurcates, some trains go to 상일 and some to 마천, I didn’t know which one I was in).

Side note on Hangul (aka Korean letters): I’ve been in Korea for well over a month, and I couldn’t read anything. I didn’t even bother trying. I knew Korean letters were complicated. When the frogeater told me that there were just 14 consonants and 10 vowels (grand total of 24 letters), I was very surprised. Well, I learned Hangul in about 15 minutes, because — behold — the letters are not only very few, they are also logical (Hangul is artificial alphabet!) and easy to remember. I’m angry at myself for not having done this a long time ago.

Saturday, right. Having experienced the immobility of our group the day before, me and the frogeater set out to visit the royal shrine. What was our surprise when we stumbled upon a park full of baduk players! It wasn’t too easy to get a game at first, but once I started playing, observers came (a white guy playing baduk, w00t), and after I killed my opponent all over the board (I gave him 5 stones, he was like european 8kyu) everyone was suddenly interested in playing me. I still won most of my games, as these guys lacked any sense of style, but they fought relentlessly. I quickly lost frogeater somewhere in the crowd (obviously, everyone wanted to play him as well).

Several games and one lunch later I decided that was it, and finally went to see 종묘. There I met a group of European girls (1 Slovak, 3 French) who had a Korean guide that spoke fluent English. I’m still not sure whether the guide was paid or free for all, but I was invited to join them, so I didn’t refuse . I proceeded with the girls (one of them even pretended to be interested in go!) to visit 창경궁 and its vast gardens. Then I made a mistake, I parted with the girls, intending to visit the other palace — 창덕궁. This palace had only one open entrance with a hostile guard who didn’t want to let me in and refused to speak English. Finally, one tourist gave me some paper with info on how to get in — there’s a guided tour just thrice a day, otherwise tough luck. Can’t recommend this palace.

I read a lot of praise about 북촌한옥마을, so was looking forward to it. I felt I was close, but couldn’t quite locate it exactly. After asking the locals about 북촌, they said that I was already there. Turns out, there are historical houses, but they amount for about 5% of randomly placed houses in this quarter. However, I got lucky and met friendly westerners who gave me a nice map of the broader center with pictures of interesting stuff. That map is really good. All maps should have pictures. Well anyway, then I continued on my way only to find out that the museums have mostly been closed already (it was about 6pm), but at least I visited 경복궁. After wandering around aimlessly for a while, a nice middle aged American lady asked me whether I needed help. She’d moved to 서울 recently, but already knows her way around pretty well. We went for a nice Chinese dinner. Then I headed for 인사동 where I bought traditional Korean sweets consisting of nuts wrapped in strings of sugar, which the American lady recommended. Again finished the day shooting random people in the streets, this time in the infamous 명동 nightlife area. This time it rained. Rain is always good for photos. I was lucky enough to catch the last subway.

Sunday was the last day for sightseeing. I got up early (well, half past eight) and headed for the museums. First I went to 국립고궁박물관, which has free entry in 2009, as a celebration of 100 years of its history. It was pretty cool, they even allowed photography (“no flash and no tripod”). Then I went to nearby 국립민속박물관, which had nice outside part showing how people lived in various times in Korean history, and inside part with several expositions. After watching traditional dance (there was some sort of EOS 5d users meeting, there were at least 20 ppl, lenses ranging from tiny primes to huge zooms, all with the impossible-to-overlook red stripe). Then I went to the baduk park again. On my way I met a friendly Korean engineering student looking for some English practice. He walked me to the park and gave me a lot of valuable info about 한국. After playing few games in the park, I got cold, so I went to find some food. I happened to stumble upon a baduk club, where I stayed for just 3k. I got to play many people, one was really strong (beat me two times easily) but the rest were pretty weak. Although I was rather tired and my back hurt pretty bad from the hours of slow walking during the last three days, I went for one more walk along 청계천, and didn’t regret it.

All in all, I’m pretty satisfied with how the trip turned out, I have just two complaints:

• complete lack of waste bins; I was told it’s because of the threat of terrorism (typical Korean overreaction)
• annoying notices about H1N1 and various countermeasures (overreaction again, Mexico, where H1N1 originated and which was hit worst, has only 33000 cases (0.02% of population), and 350 deaths (1% of the infected people die))

[Edit:] You can (and should!) see my photos from Seoul!

After my arrival to Incheon International Airport (”A WORLD BEST AIRPORT”, as they proudly write everywhere), I had to fill in and sign a few papers. Although I messed up several times, the personnel were very friendly and extremely helpful (even the security guys, unlike the security hag in Schiphol who made me throw all my stuff from my bag, and then felt the need to doublecheck my umbrella (it’s an effin umbrella, what did you expect?)).

After a while of free airport wifi, Kim-sabomnim arrived to pick me up and brought me to Hanguk Kiwon, the Korean go center, where I had the pleasure to watch woman pro-tournament. I was surprised that most participants were girls apparently younger than me. I was expecting them to be extremely skillful players, but I was still completely taken aback by their complete and utter concentration combined with calmness. Also, some of them were very pretty (yes I took photos, yes they will be online, just you wait).

To me, Korea is full of contrasts. A lot of stuff is simply the other way around. All the Koreans drive Jaguars, SUVs and business-class cars. It never ceases to amaze me to see a farmer living in a small, falling-apart hut, next to which his brand new hyunday genesis is parked. Which leads me to accomodation…

There are no family houses in Korea (actually, that is a mild exaggeration, as in the villages you can find family houses, because that is practically the only way to live there). But it appears to me that in Seoul, everyone lives in appartments.

Koreans work hard and they apparently enjoy their work. I haven’t seen anyone slacking off here (Czech builders spend 90% of their time just looking around).

Korea smells. I’m no sewer expert, but I think they are doing it wrong.

Korea is covered by wonderful hills/mountains, which all look about the same: spiky and steep, rising few hundred meters above the valleys, completely covered with forest. The forests are sort of normal, with similar to European vegetation, but they are a little more dense, which (in combination with the steepness of the hills) makes them practically impassable. Hiking is difficult, I haven’t found a single tourist path yet.

Korean food. I can’t say I like it. It’s basically rice + something so spicy that you can’t taste anything but fire (often, that “something” is kimchi). Although I’m not a huge fan of rice, I have to say that Asian rice can’t be even compared to European. It is simply something different — in Europe, it’s either overcooked slimy thing, or undercooked hard pieces. Here rice is slightly sticky, solid, and tastes ten times better.

Korea is mostly cheap, you can get a nicely sized dinner for about 3€.

I believe there is no single bakery in whole Korea. Chocolate is hard to find, expensive, and it sucks.

Koreans drink water, you can get free potable water practically everywhere. It’s awesome.

The weather is mostly rainy, but the last few days were surprisingly sunny. I heard that winters are real cold around here.

Stay tuned — the next post is going to be about KBC and why it is much harder to study here than you might think.

[EDIT:]
One thing I forgot to write — Koreans don’t speak English. But they speak Korean. And I speak English. So we usually understand each other pretty well.

My blog is dead. Long live my blog!

My plans have changed. I am going to Korea for three months to study go. Then I’m going back to Amsterdam, almost moneyless, to begin the new life.

You can have a look at amazing amounts of new photos.

The EGC was mostly eneventful. After a promising first week, second week was a small disaster.

I am in Amsterdam now. I love Amsterdam.

Tomorrow, I’m flying to Korea. I was urged (by several people!) to put some info from Korea here — I will try not to disappoint you.

Good night.

LSG has ended. It was too short but a lot of fun. I’ve made about two bazzilion photographs, which I’ve managed to reduce to just 212. You are invited to see pictures from LSG 2009. They are mostly portraits, as I’m still in love with my Samyang 85/1.4 and I mostly refuse to use the kit 18-55mm lens.

You might be also interested in my gallery from Warsaw go tournament, or more generally in my pictures from the year 2009.

Again, I have no time to write much more, but hopefully all the pictures will keep you interested for a while. European Go Congress is coming up shortly, so I’m not getting a break in go nor in photography… And then — well, there’s time to slack off, travel, play go, make pics, drink vodka, and have fun, and then there’s time to work. Time to work is getting close, and to my own surprise, I’m sort of looking forward to it.

The good:

• Polish people are extremely hospitable and helpful.
• Either there is a very low amount of thieves or I am really lucky.
• Food (cheese, bread, yoghurt, chocolate) in shops is quite a bit cheaper here than in Czechia (though restaurants aren’t cheaper at all).
• Krakow rocks. Especially the shores of Wisła river next to the Wawel castle.

The bad:

• Car drivers drive like assholes. When you’re going by bike, they drive way closer than what I find comfortable (I thought I was used to this from Czechia, but in Poland it’s even a little worse). When you, as a walker, get to a zebra crossing, in Western Europe the drivers will do everything they can to stop and let you pass. In Czechia, they usually let you pass, but not always (not when they’re going fast and don’t want to halt). In Poland, drivers almost never stop at a zebra crossing. You can see them slowing down, so you step into the street thinking “finally a decent driver” and the next thing you know is that you are jumping back onto the pavement as the driver was just slowing down to take a right turn. Similar on red lights — just because there’s red lights shining 50 meters ahead of the passing car doesn’t mean that the driver will let you pass.
• No discounts for lunch menu in restaurants. Eating out is quite expensive compared to cooking yourself.

Yeah, both lists are incomplete. Does it look like I post this just because I haven’t posted anything in April yet?

“What took you so long?”

Yes, I’ve returned from LSG a week ago. But I spent all my time either at work or creating the photogallery (I made over 800 pictures but my memory card got full so I had to delete the bad ones, I returned with over 650 pictures and the gallery is 187, so — as you can see — it was a lot of work).

LSG was great (you can see mroe photogalleries), and I really regret having to wait almost 350 days for the next one again. Last year when I came home from LSG I just sat there for several days doing nothing and waiting for the next LSG. Luckily, this year work takes care of that, it’s really good to have something concrete to do.

Sorry for a boring post, hopefully it was at least short enough. (and hey — it included links to photos… by the way, my favourite pictures from my own gallery are 4, 32, 94, 100, 109, 149, 152, 176, 178 and 181)

As I was planning my journey to Krakow and there was only one reasonable train to take, I worked overtime during the week so that I could leave work earlier on Friday. Well, the train was delayed, so I wouldn’t be able to catch the following train, which meant there was basically no way to get to Krakow. After giving up for a few hours, I realised that I really really wanted to go there and decided to take a night train. So I left home at 9pm again and headed for the train. The journey was quite ok except two things: 1) I had to change trains at 3am and 2) my camera got stolen.

Krakow is a beautiful city and I had several hours to walk through the center (kind of sucks I didn’t have the camera, as at 6:30am the lighting was just perfect). I especially enjoyed the Wawel castle, which provides a nice view of the city and is in itself rather spectacular.

The tournament (European Pair Go Championship) was well organized, and there were free cookies and water (even for visitors such as myself!). By the way, pair go tournaments have an interesting feature that half of the participants are girls.

I spent the day relaxing, playing and taking photos (a friend lent me her camera because she was playing and couldn’t take photos anyway). We spent the evening at juggler’s place, which was a lot of fun… juggler has table football at home, so we spent a lot of time playing that (and the rest of the people played go, of course).

Once again I got very lucky by going somewhere where I really wanted to go after a big obstacle appeared, and once again I’m really glad it went this way. I had a great time, I met lots of people whom I haven’t seen for far too long (spirit (been a while), kotasia (cute new hair), hitech (I finally started reading GEB), gertzu (thanks!), agusia (babusia~~), elusia, michal, iskierka, juggler (thx for saturday evening), vertigo (yeah, ruby, we know), sheena, yapi, shaa (hope the leg is getting better), fajnymis, kamyszyn (ban ‘em all), comboy, sosna (no more photos, I promise), nil, cichacz (dupa!), kabu (xD), grabol and everyone else whose name I forgot to write in here) and I met some other people in person for the very first time (Lothus, and… um, actually, isn’t Lothus enough? )

Edit:
Some photo galleries:
My photo gallery
Official photo page, with links to other galleries

Friday: I couldn’t sleep well, sweating and waking up all the time. In the morning I didn’t feel any better plus I had a horrible headache. After measuring my temperature and finding out it was slightly over 38˚C, I knew I had a problem. A big problem.

Decisions, decisions… First thing, I’m not going to go to work, that is completely out of question with my head spinning at about 180 rotations per minute. The big decision was whether to take vacations or become officially ill. If I became officially ill, I obviously couldn’t go to France in the afternoon. So I decided to risk it, called my boss, explained the situation and asked him whether I could take Friday off. He wasn’t too happy but he actually didn’t have much of a choice…

Then I slept for few hours and after that went to visit the doctor. After explaining my symptoms, I got the expected “no way you are leaving anywhere today” response. I let her know that I’d really really like to go there, and after some tests (urine, blood, etc.), none of which ended up well, she concluded that maybe I could try it.

Off to buy Paralen and Smecta. Temperature jumping back and forth between 37 and 38˚C. Funny how it was completely in sync with my headache.

After getting diarrhoea, drinking smecta (I bet I could get some clay way cheaper than this) and sleeping through the whole afternoon, I was facing a decision: should I stay home, get healthy in three days and regret it for the rest of the week, or should I leave and die far from home? Opposed to advice from almost everyone, I decided to leave.

Those 24 hours in the bus weren’t so bad, I just kind of sat there and waited. Both high temperature and headache were practically gone, all I was left with was a diarrhoea. And smecta for the rescue (it really tastes like mud). I think I ate about one roll during the journey.

We arrived at Tignes a bit earlier than planned, so we had some time to just enjoy the sunny weather and look around the town/village.

Sunday morning was rather sunny. There were ~30 centimeters of fresh snow, which was, uh oh… very nice… at least for those who were able to ski in it somehow. As for me, I never was any good at skiing in deep snow. I think I fell about 4 times. Moreover, stale rolls + smecta did not exactly give me much strength to fight all that snow. Luckily, the weather got substantially worse in the afternoon, so I just stayed home and slept through it all.

I don’t remember much of Monday, except stale rolls, smecta, and bad weather. I slept through the morning and only went skiing in the afternoon, but I don’t recall the details too well.

Tuesday was the turning point: The diarrhoea stopped (well, almost), I tried some new food like rice and even had two squares of chocolate. Weather was perfect, there was no new snow (ie. the pistes were groomed) so we went exploring the surroundings.

You might want to consult the map, as I’m going to present some otherwise rather boring names:

After skiing on Tichot for over an hour, while my sister was getting her snowboard repaired, we went up from Val Claret through Tichot and Col du Palet to L’Aiguille Percee (2748), then went through Sache piste all the way down to Tignes les Brevieres (1550). Over 1km vertically down in one go. It was very nice and there was plenty of nature around, so we had a nice lunch in the forest. Then we returned to Tignes 2100. As there was still a lot of time left till the evening, we went over Toviere (2704) down to La Daille (1785) and then by “funiculaire” up to Rocher de Bellevarde (2827).

Wednesday was also great. The weather was excellent, so we headed straight over Col de Fresse and Rocher de Bellevarde to Val d’Isere (1850). Then up to Solaise (2560) and down to Le Laisinant. From there to the fifth (!) and (as we thought) last valley. There we went down to Le Fornet (1930) where we had lunch (mmm, cheese). “Signal” was possibly the steepest red slope I’ve ever seen. We were rather surprised that Glacier de Pissaillas and the slopes on it were in yet another valley, it certainly didn’t look so on the map. And boy it was cold in there. So, after going Cascades once, we headed back using Leissieres Express, which is a silly chairlift that takes you up on one side of the hill and down on the other. Alas, it was the only way to get back. We returned in basically the same way from here (Solaise, Val d’Isere, Rocher de Bellevarde, Col de Fresse). As there was still some time left, we went to funiculaire Grande Motte, and then to the huge cabin (they call it “cable car” in English, but I don’t think that describes it well, “fucking huge cabine” describes it much better, imho). At 3456m, this was the highest point we reached in Tignes.

The weather worsened significantly on Thursday. We spent the morning on Lanches, with the occasional funiculaire not to get bored. As the weather was so-so, we lunched back in our appartment. After the lunch we went to Tignes 2100, where we spent the rest of the day.

Friday morning, clouds and fog everywhere. Plus 20cm of fresh snow and still snowing. First few rides were an ordeal, I tried skiing the way I’m used to (long turns accross the whole piste, mostly carving, sliding slightly on steep slopes to keep the speed under control). After getting no answer from my dad, I watched others and noticed most of the people who seemed in control of the situation were doing very short turns. I think it almost trippled my speed when I discovered (almost simultaneously) two very important things about skiing in deep snow:

• It is vital to only have your weight on one leg at a time (I used to be very precise about this, but with carving I kind of forgot, since there it is not very important). If possible, try to have the other leg high enough not to get it stuck somewhere.
• To greatly increase your stability, you should try to move your body in a constant direction at a constant speed. Make extremely short “turns” just with your legs. These slow you down considerably, while constant direction and constant speed of your body provide perfect stability.

Actually I didn’t fall at all on Friday, which is very good considering the zero visibility and huge amounts of snow (which got irregularly scattered during the day). There were many (dozens) cases where I almost fell down, but always somehow miraculously prevailed.

We spent the afternoon on Bollin and Tichot, as all the other lifts were closed.

The journey back home took a bit longer (slightly over 24 hours) as we got stuck in a traffic jam, but otherwise it went ok.

All in all, it was a great week, I further improved my carving skillz, and I finally learned to ski in deep snow.

I started the trip in Warsaw, where I came to participate in a tournament. I played against Seok-bin in the first round, and only lost by 7 points, which is probably my biggest go-achievement as of yet In next two rounds I have beaten two 4d, and after that I lost to a 2d by half a point. That kinda sucked, but it still didn’t stop me from winning a 2gb iPod nano. So overall, the tourney was a success for me. I’d also like to thank vertigo and the sushi girls.

The following day, Azael took me and spirit to Warsaw Uprising Museum. It presented the war in a very raw way, which was rather frightening but interesting to experience.

After that we (with spirit and Azael) moved to Lodz. We stayed there shortly so I’ve just seen the center of the city and Jewish cemetery, but overall it left a good impression on me.

I don’t feel like writing about LSG events chronologically, so here are a few things in more or less random order:

• During the first week, the weather was horrible, it mostly rained and it was damn cold. The second week brought a significant change, so we could spend a lot of time by the lake (and in the lake).
• I got drunk (vodka) to the point where I wasn’t able to walk or even stand up. This has never happened to me before, it is cool to have experienced it.
• I won the main tournament at LSG (Memorial Jerzego Sacharzewicza) by winning 6 out of 6. I got lucky several times, including the win against Merlijn by half a point. I won the Haengma book and it got lost/stolen (I know exactly on which table I left it and it just wasn’t there the next day).
• The latest time at which I went to sleep was quarter to seven.
• I might have smoked something illegal and I might have liked it.
• I’ve seen several people jumping full clothed into the cold lake late at night for just three beers.
• I played pairgo championship with a 24k and we beat a pair consisting of a 5k and a 1d. Pairgo sometimes really is unbelievable.
• I experienced something which hurt me very deeply, but managed to recover in about three days. I’m getting close to becoming an emotionless robot.
• Together with spirit and fiszu, we won the team tournament (handi -2, so it wasn’t that difficult for a strong team to win). I won Korean Fuseki book (the large red one).
• I went on several walks with several different people during the night. Night walks (and night talks) for the win. Somehow people are much more sincere and there is a better atmosphere, at least that’s how I perceive it.

My thanks to everyone who attended these events. Biggest thanks go to vertigo, Azael, Ela, Spirit, method, kotasza, Dorotka, fisz and soui.

PS: Photos so far: kamila (great photos, but just a few), kotasza (mobile photos: quality = 0, size = huge), sh/yapee (many photos, good ones) and finally great photos by ignus.

PPS: Oh yeah, in case you didn’t know: Spirit is totally NOT interested in underage girls.

PPPS: LSG 2008 starts in about 350 days, hope to see you there.

I’m going to spend afternoon with my ex-classmates, watching photos from Australia. After that I take overnight train to Warsaw. There I will attend a tournament during the weekend. The week after that is going to consist mostly of sightseeing Poland and just having fun. And then next two weeks on LSG.

Ideal vacations.

*tasuki logout*