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18 August 2009

Korean technology at the service of the tourist - part II

This post has three pictures... One of them is not so related to tourists but in any case is related to technology.

Yes, Korea more or less means technology and big technology. All the time we see people watching television on their mobile phones while in the metro or in the bus. Kitchen fridges are like the american but maybe bigger. Our couchsurfing hosts here in Seoul had a 730 liters one! The washing machines are enormous, in Europe we would see them only in laundries. We pass by a shop the other day and the smallest one was meant for up to 9kg. They go mostly around 12, and the biggest was to fit it 17kg (they don't use bed sheets but rather synthetic blankets which they wash in the machine often).

But lets talk about the pictures:
This is my mobile phone, which does not work in Korea as they use a different technology, but I keep it to put notes on it along the day. The thing hanging from it is... the "key-card" of the house of our couchsurfing hosts. Already in 2003 I was amazed that was possible to open the apartment of my friend Suzy here with a code or remote control. Now they can also use touchfree cards which at the same time can work as portable wallet and used to pay the public transport and small things in the convenience store.

This machine, which sell instruments for less than 6euros, was in the corridor of our motel in Gongju. The "instruments" we could not decipher so well what they were besides that they were sex toys and one of them was sold with batteries...

This picture shows the computer I'm using right now. It is our hotel room, which cost 50kW, around 28euros, a slightly higher than the budget price of 30-40kW they usually cost. But we are in the capital. The backpackers hostels are the same price and are full (but have kitchen and laundry).
Ok, what we have here... From the left to the right, we can see a couple of bottles which includes hair gel, body cream, after-shave and balsam, hair brush, mosquito killer; hair-dryer; then the computer with a 19 or 21inch flat screen; then the remote control which controls both the lights, the television, the DVD player and the air-con; there is air-con; there is DVD player (and dozens of titles near to reception which one can take for free and mostly they are not porn!); TV of 1meter diagonal with home cinema (there are 4 speakers and subwoofer in the room!), fridge (with 3 free soft drinks), water (hot and cold) dispenser which we will use to make our morning coffees. There is also phone and the toilet has a shower with kind-of massage function. The bed is big one with typical Korean hard mattress (they are used to sleep on the floor).

For safety, and after checking with four guest-houses that were full and 4 others that were more expensive than here, we decided to follow the LP suggestion, which I link from GoogleBooks, and this is why we end up here.

2 comments:

  1. Amazing !! the houses must be huge to fit the fridge, the washing machine, big TV screen and all the other gadgets ! :-) What I really liked was the small key-card: really awsome !

    Have fun ! as for me, I keep travelling back and forwards to London every weekend... a bit tiring with the work but it is fun anyway.

    cheers

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  2. Yep, hope Vania is doing well with her course and live in London. Missing to go out with you. Here we keep on Contemporary Art mood. I'm sure Eva will post something about the exibhition we saw today.

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