It’s been a while since I’ve updated the links here on Gyeongjublog, so here’s a quick run down on sites I’ve run across lately that are worth checking out. To kick things off, it seems the KTO’s (Korean Tourism Organization) got a new interactive map of Korea that kicks Google Map’s butt. It looks prettier, has more information, and most importantly: it’s in English! Unfortunately, you can’t do cool things with it like plot your hiking routes on it or imbed it in your website, so I guess I’ll be sticking with Google Maps here for a little while longer.
For a lot of Westerners Feng Shui, or Pungsu-jiri (풍수지리) in Korean, ranks right up there with fan death and acid rain causing baldness. For most Koreans, however, it governs matters as serious as where to bury your parents and wheather or not Seoul’s colonial era City Hall should be demolished. Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, David Mason has a fascinating page on the history and basic concepts governing Korean Pungsu-jiri . It’s part of his broader website: san-shin.org , which is so cool that I’ll be giving it a more indepth review here shortly.
If you’re a museum geek like me, you’ve really got to check out emuseum.go.kr. They’ve got detailed pages on tons of museums (public and private) through out Korea, covering everything from military history and coal mining to currency and paper making. There are also online galleries on historical and archeological artifacts as well as dozens of English video shorts on Korean historical artifacts. All in all, fun for the whole family.
And I can’t finish up without mentioning a few of the blogs I’ve been checking out lately. Ajuma’s Journal is updated almost daily and has a lot of cool info and reflections on life in Korea. Recent posts cover handy topics like catching the cherry blossoms in Jinhae, jimjilbang etiquette, and the how’s and why’s of White Day.
Likewise, Midnight Runner is a semi-regular podcast based in Seoul focusing on the day-to-day issues in lives of ESL teachers in Korea. It’s very informative and provides first-hand personal experiences dealing things like visa problems, having a baby in Korea, and buying motorcycles. It’s recently moved to a new site, but there are still a few dozen episodes in the archives.
And I’ll end with a shameless plug for my friend Angus who’s started at Dongugk with me recently. He’s got a few posts up on Korean Subtitles, which is a video story-telling blog with folks telling short stories and anecdotes about life here in Korea. It’s pretty cool, though my only complaint is there are only like 7 posts. Maybe they’ll get it revived here in a bit.
