test test  ¶ 3/28/2008 11:56:00 AM 1 comments links to this post

Axis of evil Success! Back from North Korea today. That place was awesome -- bizarre empty streets and delusional hermitry. Landed some fun propaganda art and managed to snap a couple elicit photos of people's backyards (photos of people, soldiers and houses were strictly forbidden, and soldiers go through your camera on the way out of the country to enforce compliance). will write more later.  ¶ 3/15/2008 09:54:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Kim chi coma More Korea mayhem the last couple days. They have super upscale karoake bars, with plush seating, expensive fruit plates, and gay karoake "helpers" with showmanship skills to show the shy people how it's done. yesterday we also met the Mayor of Seoul: a handsome man whose political success is due in no small way to his good looks and charm. His plan for Seoul?: give it more good looks and charm. Parks etc. Whatever worked for him, probably works for Seoul. Also went on the "every Korean kid's dream" day. Started by touring the chocolate and candy factory (bedecked in hairnets and white lab coats), saw some inspirational corporate videos (these Korean companies love their company videos), and then got the tour of Lotte World: the world's largest indoor amusement park. They let us cut the line in front of all the Japanese tourist kids. Then it was preposterous steak-dinner opulence and talk of the Korean private equity industry. Then Karoake and whiskey bombs. Apparently one desireable attribute in a Korean businessman is the ability to endure prolonged drinking bouts with one's business partners. The good deals are inked informally over drinks, so presumably the more sober you are, the better your deal. tonight's adventure: staying at the temple with the monks. luckily i brought my Nirvana albums.  ¶ 3/13/2008 12:48:00 AM 0 comments links to this post

South Korea I'm in Korea right now, posting from the Roman column-strewn club lounge of "Asia's most luxurious hotel", the Lotte. Like most Korean companies, the Lotte group owns not only hotels, but lines of candy bars, movie theaters, an amusement park, a department store, and on and on. Similarly, you may know Samsung for electronics, but they also build ships, have a fashionable clothing line, make toothepaste, and aparently own communist style apartment complexes. That whole "core competency" concept didn't quite make it into the Korean business world. Anyway - I'm on an MBA study tour and therefore careen about this country in a banner emblazened bus with 30 other students, going from one company and gourmet meal to the next. It would seem reasonable that student types should eat cheap and reside cheaper, but we have alums and wooing MBA-recruiting companies to see to it that we're pampered. We also, apparently, have news media following us to our Korean Yoga sessions at 6:30am, so we've already appeared in the papers saying things like "Koreans seem to be more flexible than Americans". Overall though, I rather like Korea. This was an agrarian country in ruins 50 years ago, and now it's in the top 15 economies worldwide, and growing fast. They have four-story coffee shops, super modern video-streaming mobile phones that work on the subways, and that dried-cuttlefish snack food at the bars when you drink. That stuff rocks. If only Internet in the rooms weren't $20 . . .  ¶ 3/11/2008 05:03:00 AM 0 comments links to this post