Dave and I left on Northwest Air flight lucky number 7 at 1:05 on Wednesday, March 19th. The first 2.5 hours felt like half the flight. I read the whole Korean history section of the Moon Publishing South Korea guide book - reminded me of the Polish history: lots of fighting with some impressive neighbors (China, Mongolia, and Japan). Fascinating and often tragic. I got a deeper understanding of the North v South Korean situation. Did you know the South never signed the treaty that created the 38th parallel border? The north just stopped fighting after they signed (with the U.N. and China) and the U.S. came to help the south lay their mines in the demilitarized zone. So the south has an attitude a bit about that and the north doesn't trust the south because they refused to sign. A bit of Hatfields and the McCoys it seems. Ante is raised now though so the general population seems a bit concerned (I may understate that but would need to know Korean to better discuss the issue with my hosts here).

It felt really great to arrive at the clean and shiny Incheon International Airport. Incheon is 40 kilometers west of Seoul and is known for MacArthur's famous landing that trapped the North Koreans in the south. The flight was no fun but the air was stable and we avoided a bumpy ride. We decided to take a hotel on the airport island after taxi drivers wanted to charge us $80 to drive to Seoul. We didn't realize we were in a different airport than mentioned in the ICU campus guide where is suggested $7 could get us into Seoul. In retrospect, we were fortunate to stay in Incheon as the 'airport city' provided an interesting perspective of a smaller Korean community. A bit like an old western main street: a built up city for three by three blocks but not much around outside. We took a walking tour and found nothing to be open at 9am on a Friday. We came back to eat a soup and noodles breakfast in the restaurant attached to our hotel.

The four hour bus-train-taxi combo to actually get to Taejon would usually have bothered me. But, of course, there was so much to see in a new place. Dave and I enjoyed seeing all the fenced in golf driving ranges. Seeing all the built up Korean cities was priceless to see through a first timer to Asia (Dave). So many nice mountains around Taejon but only a few have paths. For example, no one climbs the mountains (which look a bit like in the Spokane area in terms of tree cover) right behind campus. We arrived on ICU's campus by 3:00pm on Friday, March 21st. We checked in with Mingyu and Sheughyan to get a tour of the office and a key to our dormitory room. We relaxed because we knew we had to a bit of a drive to our hike the next day, a hike to a Buddhist temple that we would not see hiking near campus.

You might ask, "How's the mood of the South Koreans ?"

That's a bit like asking the mood of everyone in America by surveying a few folks in Omaha, Nebraska. This is your usual hardcore Asian university. Students work 7 days a week basically and don't have time for much else except a couple of hobbies (sports or entertainment) a day. The folks I spoke with are disappointed with any war but not holding anything against the US per se. Of course, what are they going to say to me, a visiting guest invited by them? They are gracious hosts and so I will assume it is genuine and not out of perceived burden/necessity.

One of our hosts, Mingyu, says he has an easy week this week. The other, Sheughyan, has a hard week as he has an academic paper due to the press March 31. They liked to eat with us though so we realized right away we would have lots of fun if only during meal breaks. In fact, we went with seven of Dongman's (the director of the networking lab there who I had known for five years) students to a traditional Korean barbeque for our first meal in Taejon. We took off our shoes and took a lotus position on a clean hardwood floor under the very low dining table. We learned quickly you don't eat your salad first. Everything is eaten together in Korea as our hosts taught us with a chuckle or two. The food was fantastic and would have been even better if we hadn't had decent food on the airplane.

Day 3 - A visit to KAIST and a typical Korean mountain park

We woke up in the Taejon area (the science city), a metropolitan area of 1.3 million nestled in a valley with mountains on all sides (20 km to the mountains yesterday). We have a very cute dorm room with our own shower and toilet. The campus provides four guest rooms for visiting scholars. $2/day for the supporting department (lab). The weather was perfect with blue sky (54 F) and a definite hint of spring in the air. Reminded me completely of Delaware and, I suppose, DC. Hundreds of thousands of cherry blossoms will come out in two weeks (later than usual as they had a snowy winter here which makes sense since we got little rain on our side of the Pacific), almost identical to DC in terms of the excitement of nature's show.

The Buddhist temple was gorgeous. No nails or mortar. Just interlocking pieces of colorfully painted wood for all twelve buildings. All female monks, two of which were handing out coconut candies to visitors (where, of course, westerners get the biggest haggle and smile). We hiked up to 700 meters (the temple is at 400 meters) which brought a nice sweat as we sat on a wooden platform overlooking fast moving water that almost qualified as a waterfall (they call it 'little waterfall'). Rocky peaks above us (with no method for humans to get there). Trees mixed between hardwoods and evergreens (small though as the rocky base does not have all that much soil).

We ate noodles by KAIST, the Korean MIT in terms of reputation. KAIST is totally free for students who qualify based on their formal education. 1000 even get a military waiver (the only known waiver in Korea for males) for their good work. Our host, HyungSeuk, had one of those waivers and was very relieved as he's quite a liberal and not pleased with the military requirement. He reminds me quite a bit of my friend Richard that Mom and Dad met. We spent 9 hours with him and he still seemed to want more contact. We both realized how much we remembered of our day together in Taipei at VRST (when we shared a table for the coveted Chinese buffet that cost $80 a head for the government).

We got demos of his lab's work (a pure VR lab) and discussed the harsh lay-offs in 1999 that brought his lab from 20 to 7 students. The work is very good but dated (seems, like with the HITL, 1997 was the heyday of their best work in software algorithms).

We ate in the dorm for lunch (a basic Korean lunch of rice and flavored tofu) but went to a noodle house for dinner. I got the spicy dish which was not all that spicy. Dave had traditional udon which I get all the time in our south campus dining hall udon station. The hot noodles (our second time in two days) have a tomato base that reminds of Campbell's tomato soup (unexpected) but all noodles are fantastic. Lots of food to remind me of my good friend Dave, of Korean heritage, at Wisconsin. We had beers in a Korean bar which looked like a typical bar in North America. The pitcher cost $7 which at first Dave and I thought were prices per bottle.

Day 4 - Getting on Task

We made it up to midnight working on our programming tasks so our clocks are finally synchronizing. We hadn't made it past 8pm before tonight and yet we needed to start coding with more gusto. Our host Sheughyan took us for a nice dinner with his girlfriend. Basically, they slice up a whole cow and you eat everything. Identifiable parts included tongue, elbow tendon, stomach, and intestine. It is cut so thin that it cooks in 30 seconds in boiling water which makes a soup. I figure that tradition comes from the Mongolians who ran the peninsula here at the same time they ran China (in the 1200s or so, the time of Attila the Hun). They are so proud that they eat the whole cow and, because of their treatment of the animal, a Korea cow costs them five times that of a US or Australian one.

I respect that very much and am bonded with Korean culture as a result (as I am for their respect of nature in the Buddhist tradition). Although Japan is just 80 km away over the Japan Straight, the students treat Japan as we do England (as if it were that far away). Very few have any interest at all of visiting and don't like to follow any Japanese tradition (though the Japanese changed their culture from things they picked up in Korea during their occupation, 1910-1945). Many Japanese traditions were modified from Korean influence. Seems the Japanese still feel superior (they kept Koreans as second class citizens for a long time in the 1910s, 20s, and 30s).

After dinner we had ice cream which has no dairy in Korea (made totally with ice only). I thought they would use rice too but they don't. They have flavors like kiwi and sweet potato but I got kaluha and walnut. I must try the green tea flavor next as everyone at the HIT Lab talks so positively of it in Japan. Sheughyan's girlfriend lives in his house in Soeul. She is very nice and that's quite a nice deal for her as he lives in a little dormitory room like the one we stay in. The guys worked all weekend as they do every week. Kind of a quiet and peaceful existence in my approximation.

Today we will meet Dongman Lee, the lab directory. Dongman and I have had a relationship for five years now. He has offered me a teaching appointment when I finish my PhD if I want it. It would not be bad to have it but I wouldn't do that to my family as it would feel far away. I want to get closer, not further away! Anyway, his wife is done with her PhD at UWashington and so he does not visit there anymore. She has a job in Boulder, Colorado and he is collaborating with the MIT Media Lab (our lab director blew that opportunity from being too busy). He would have been collaborating with us (the Korean government pays MIT $4 million US for the 'right to collaborate') if I had my PhD and were a principal investigator of the lab. That I know for sure as the work we are doing together is perfectly symbiotic!

You can read about our projects on the Web at http://cds.icu.ac.kr/atlas/resources.html where you can see their work down below on the Virtual Playground project that they worked on with us in Seattle during summer 2001.

Dave and I wandered downtown ourselves last night to get some pizza (they server pickles with pizza here and the Coke is free) and some walking in. There is a free bus downtown for students and we walked back (about 2.5km) to get some exercise which has not been at a premium here. Beautiful night and the air totally reminds me of Delaware. Same latitude. Very little pollution as the Hyundai are clean and modern cars. Different than Taipei for sure but not a fair comparison (10 million v. 1.3 million). Perhaps Seoul is pretty polluted (24 million) though.

Day 5 - Momentum on the Project

We are incorporating ICU's ATLAS library 1.0, the stable one, in our visualization work. They used their Java code base for that. We are using the C/C++ which is more mature and higher performance as a result. ATLAS is ICU's networking package. They have fine-tuned it over 7 years now and we want to use their package as a result. They seem to use all the same ideas as the GreenSpace networking package but have kept them up to date with newer ideas. In return, we will provide them with a very maleable 3-D visualization engine. 3-D engines are a dime a dozen right now (Java 3D is a popular one for PC and Linux that we have used for years, right?) and so we thought we could do something special by making our engine algorithm pluggable (meaning you can experiment with algorithms for different engine components easily) when most engines have trade-off decisions built in that you can't easily change your mind on.

We are writing our code with ANSI C and C++ (ANSI is the standard for interoperability) in order to run our engine on PC, Linux, IRIX (Silicon Graphics' operating system), and MacIntosh, the hardest to find solutions for these days and yet a big platform for our CEV audience. It is an eight month project in which I supervise two undergraduate students who are getting Computer Science research credits (and their degrees in June) and I get three credits toward my PhD requirements (which at this point just requires I take 3 or more credits a quarter). We need to show a demonstration to Tom Furness on April3rd and so the time here is a nice warm-up as we want to leave them a working demo as well.

I spent yesterday trying out their networking layer with simple visualizations. It is working. But, today, we take Dave's new engine and replug the work I have been doing the last four weeks into his new design. It is a bit like heart surgery as we will give his engine life as a result. We think the work will take four hours or so but we could have forgotten something that will keep us 'under the knife' for a twelve hour marathon. We have to get this work done today as our third accomplice is waiting to plug his stuff in after my stuff is plugged.

You can see why project management is so important in this trade. It is why Microsoft rules. They do that much better than I do. I ended up waiting around for half the day yesterday as I was dependent on Dave's work. It gets tiring to watch someone else work. He finished his task so it is all me today (with his help as he's a better programmer than I am in the C++ realm).

I am getting paid an additional $400 for my lecture tomorrow at 1PM. That will pay for all incidentals on this trip which is most unexpected and generous. Dongman took us out for a great lunch and is taking us out for dinner tonight (be bim bop, the famous Korean dish you may know). I can answer more questions about the work and will wait to gauge your interest via them.

Day 6 - Work and a Climb

Well, only 48 hours left in Korea. It is whizzing by now. We worked from 9am until 11pm last night and left with a slight uneasy feeling as we had to spend quite some time on a bug. Dongman, the lab director, took us out for a traditional lunch. I took lots of pictures but the best text representation is to imagine that there was 80 dishes on the table as in our first night barbeque. Lots of vegetables and some meats. All in different sauces.

Today I am speaking at the computer science seminar. They have given me a full hour and all 25 computer science students will be there. I will take a picture of the audience before I present. I have lots of great slides to show so it won't matter if my message is not so well understood. I hope to have fun with it and not be stressed. But, since our demo is late and I hope to show it tonight (Dongman heads to Soeul for Thursday), we have another busy day today. Our routine feels just like the students' routine. Lunch and Dinner meals are served exactly at noon and six pm even though it is buffet line serving. You must get your food within a half hour and you must be done by the time the hour is up. Breakfast is the only meal that lingers, from 7 to 9:30 am. We have enjoyed that meal the best on campus as a result. Yesterday, breakfast was kippers on rice with seaweed salad and kim chee (cabbage in hot sauce). It felt like a lunch more than breakfast. You only get a tiny glass of water with meals here. You get a big bowl of light broth soup from which to draw liquid. We have been offered no juice or soda. Only the free Cokes with the one pizza meal off campus. We drink a lot of water and I make dixie cups of coffee twice a day (the sugar is built into the coffee grinds).

I would like to take a walk tomorrow AM to wind down but it may not be possible if we are still behind schedule. Our hosts have been gracious and so I am keen to give them something useful. We may have to keep up the collaboration after we leave which is fine with me. I would like that as the comp sci PhD students are hard core workers and learners. We are all going to the movies on Thursday night as our final social event for the trip. We are back on a bus at 5:20 AM the next morning (express bus back to Incheon, the city of the airport we arrived in -- not the Soeul airport but a half hour away).

Hope to have a nice update for you tomorrow in the AM. It is easy to write as Dave showers. He takes long ones. I think he is still having fun though I know there is more pressure on him today. I wanted him to come to the seminar but I think he will have to work through instead (call me slave driver) as the integration is behind for tonight.

Day 7

Thought I might hear from M&D in the queue this AM. Mingyu and Sheughyan took us downtown to see a movie (The Recruit) which was fun. It was the 11pm movie as they had class until 9pm (mandatory 'computer science lab seminar', a veritable catch all it seems). The theater was on the penthouse floor of a ten story building downtown. Downtown Taejon's entertainment district is very clean and bright, a bit like Yonge street in Toronto. Many young people were milling about, laughing, smoking, playing video games that tend to flow right into the street under awnings. They took us for KFC and cokes which was kind. Their portions are smaller than in the US which was thankful as I am not a big fan of KFC chicken.

The taxi ride cost more than the movie as young people carry all kinds of special discount cards in their very long wallets (double length to ours, like a check book wallet). But, we split the cab ride four ways and so it was a good method of travel. I did not see much mixing of the sexes in the streets. Young girls travel in packs and the young boys tend to spread out in less obvious groups. Our hosts were adamant about the safety of Korean cities after dark. No guns anywhere in the country except for military personnel who are few and far between (I guess since a half million spend their whole careers up by the demilitarized zone with mighty North Korean Army staring at them, another half million strong).

We are working specifically on the networking layer integration of the ATLAS code provided and maintained by our hosts. We discussed the future of our collaboration and it seems we will collaborate well into the future. I suspect they will visit Seattle again next year, especially if their director gets the grant renewal he expects (his two-year review comes up in August). That will make saying goodbye easier to handle. Dave and I had pepsi and orange juice for breakfast today with little coffee cake snacks (all the good food was gone from the dining hall since we were later than usual).

It rained for half an hour when we woke but was some blue and some gray skies when we walked back to the office (I have taken pictures of the whole path between dorms and office). Dave and I climbed the campus hill last night at dusk. It was a nice spring evening that felt like a summer evening as it felt more like 9pm than 6:30pm on our clocks. We thought we would see downtown Taejon from the peak, but all we saw was a mile of hills covered with forest to the south. That was nice because we could tell there was fauna in the forest (I heard a dear and lots of grouse). We walked the ridge for a quarter mile or so and it felt like the Maryland woods (or south Jersey as the trees were mostly pine given the hardwoods still were not budding). The forest is quite thin as the hills are built on old rock and the soil has eroded away. Not much for a significant root structure to take advantage of. We were able to see the downtown area that we were walking too on occasion but that was on our side of the mountain.

Koreans have a great reverence for nature. They pack their homes into small neighborhoods with lots of high rises (much lower earthquake threat here than in Japan) and leave lots of wide open forest to remain unaffected by man. I liked the view from the top (250 meters perhaps) as we could see the end of rush hour and the nice mix of city and nature as far as the eye could see (given their was a haze in the sky that did not look like pollution).

Today is the last day and I do have to work hard. So, I send this off with a kiss, a hug, and a wish to see you soon!

Appendix - Example of Hospitality

So you can get a sense of how considerate our hosts are here in Taejon...

Dear Bruce,

By walk, it may take about an an hour from ICU campus to KAIST. I don't think it not a feasible option.

There is two buses from JeonMin Dong to KAIST. One is City BUS 132. It runs one in an hour. Unfortunate case, you should wait for it for one hour at the Bus stop:(. Because of heavy traffic around the bus route, we don't have exact schedule for the bus. But you can check the current position of buses from digital map (http://traffic.metro.daejeon.kr/its/mapinfo/bus_info.jsp?p_gubun=4) or information station at the bus stop. (all the information is written in Korean, unfortunatly) It takes about 20 minutes to KAIST. The fare is 700 won for each person. The bus stop is located a little bit far from ICU. Please ask for the direction to people at ICU. The bus stop to take off is KAIST, "Han Kook Gwa Hak Gi Sool Won" (Korean name of the KAIST).

The other one is MaEul BUS 1. It runs three in an hour. It takes about 50 min to KAIST. The fare is about 400 won for each person. (Please note that, the bus stop for the City BUS and MaEul BUS is different. MaEul BUS stop is smaller than ordinary City BUS stop and it is usually located near to the City BUS stop.) The bus stop to take off is Hanvit Apartment. It takes 5 min. to KAIST by walk from there.

Or you can take City BUS 512 which runs every 10~15 minutes. After taking the bus you shoud take off at EXPO park and change to the City BUS 814 (Directed to ChungNam Univ.). You may need to walk a little to get to the bus station at EXPO park to take City BUS 814. Please ask for the bus stop to the KAIST to nearbying person after you get off from the 512 bus. I prefer Taxi when I have to visit ICU. It takes 10 to 15 minutes and costs about 3,000 ~ 4,000 won. (It is somewhat expensive when we compare to the fare of City Bus, 700won * 2 people = 1,400 won).

And you can call taxi by phone with additional 1,000 won. There are many taxi companies that take phone call. My prefence is United Daejeon Call Taxies, phone number 255-8888. They might not able to speak in English, so you might need assitance from Korean speaking person around your place. When you take taxi, please say to the driver that your destination is "KAIST". When a taxi driver asks about location in KAIST, please tell him "GaapCheon JeongMoon", which means "riverside main gate" - the river is called GaapCheon.

My office in KAIST is located in computer science building.

If you get in trouble about transport service, please do not hesistate to call me. I will reach you by taxi at anytime, anyplace and you can come back to KAIST with me. You can make a phone call to me using public phones or you may ask anyone around you to make a phone call to me to help you (with 99% probability, they have their own mobile phone and I suppose, the most of them will help you by making a phone call to me. The probability goes high when you look them with a "lost a way" expression :) - It's a joke.

My phone number is:

Office : 042-XXX-XXXX (when you call from outside Daejeon or using mobile phone)
XXX-XXXX (when you call from inside Daejeon. ex: public phone)
Mobile phone : 016-XXX-XXXX (in any case)

Good night, and see you tomorrow.