Crossing the Han solo (sorry!)

WARNING: Reduce volume of your computer speakers before playing video.



This is our taxi ride north across the Han River to the Grand Hyatt hotel. You can just about see the Seoul TV tower up ahead, to the left of the mountain peak. Of course, it wasn't a solo journey, we were both in the cab. I just needed another lame punning headline, one the locals have probably NEVER heard before.

Gee, it's that song again

We would hear this ridiculously infectious song in our Koreatown supermarket in New York. Now we're in the land where Girls Generation (SNSD) , a small army of up-and-coming showbiz poppets recruited specifically for a Spice Girls-like pop overthrow, is everywhere, and the Gee song is about to push us over the edge into insanity. Right now, howver, it could be the greatest song of all time. Gee gee gee gee baby baby baby!

It's a little bit alien

DC: There but for the grace of god go we, here in the land where we know all of two and a half phrases in Korean: Checking out the jobs on Craigslist Seoul, and finding a writing job posting that promises 'salary comiserate with experience.' We're trying to learn at least a word a day. So far, we've had hang gung (airport), and kopi han jan (a cup of coffee), among others. Today's word is pang (bread). Lana uses her right hand to indicate the vowel sounds in Korean writing, reminding me of Francois Truffaut's hand signals to demonstrate the aliens' musical tones in Close Encounters.