The Adventures of BucketBoy

Back in Korea

2007-01-09T15:13:00.000+09:00

So I am now back in Korea. I spent Christmas in Sweden with my parents, which was very nice. Morgan was also with me in Sweden, which was lovely even though I didn't get any Christmas gifts from her :).

Now I am back in Korea and I and Morgan have moved in to a new apartment. It is really nice and you can see some pictures from it on the Seoul-Mates blog . Seoul-Mates is the blog I and Morgan have together but as you might notice it is mostly Morgan that posts to it. I am not sure but sometimes I get the feeling that Morgan gets upset with because I never post to the blog.

Two new engineers, Charles and Carl, have come to Korea from Sweden to live here for about six months. It is nice with some fresh blood here at the office.

/BucketBoy

Christmas in Sweden

2006-12-08T11:26:00.000+09:00

So I am at the Incheon airport waiting for my flight to Beijing where I will transfer to Copenhagen. I am going home to Sweden, to work and spend Christmas with my family. Morgan is also coming so that will be a lot of fun. She has been away from Sweden for almost 8 months now so I think she is excited about going there. I am excited that she is coming with me.
/Bucketboy

Something great!

2006-11-28T18:08:00.000+09:00

Something great happened today. I talked with my host-family from when I was an exchange student in the US. It was really great to talk to them again and I am so happy right now. I will be going to visit them in the summer. I can't wait!

Lazy or busy?

2006-11-24T11:40:00.000+09:00

I don't know if I am just lazy or if have been too busy. I mean it doesn't really take much to post to my blog, but still the posts have been missing. I guess that the reason is actually a little bit of both laziness and being busy. Anyway, in the last post I said I was going to post some pictures from Thailand, and with no further ado here they are:

Morgan meet Donald and they both posed for this picture. In the words of Borat: Is nice!

I meet a new friend.

At the zoo they had a stange animal that was a mix between a human and a crocodile.

Thailand no more

2006-11-14T17:23:00.000+09:00

I am back to work. The vacation in Thailand was wonderful. I will tell you lots more about it in another post where I will also include lots of pictures.
Anyway, back at the office in Korea, and it is cold. Damn cold. We need to get a heater soon or me and my coworkers will freeze to death. Other than that it is fun to be back. It is nice to see the gang again and we are now 6 people in the office here. Alright, some more work and then home to Morgan.
/BucketBoy

5 more hours

2006-11-01T10:08:00.000+09:00

Yesterday never seemed to end, and when it finally did, it was like the night never happened. Could have something to do with me working late preparing for our new employees and making sure a lot of things are taken care of before I leave for Thailand. Now it is only 5 hours left before I leave the office and then I am off to the airport with Morgan. I am really looking forward to going on this vacation with Morgan. It is going to be real nice to spend some quality time with her, a beach and nice weather.
Anyway I might not be able to post during my vacation, but if I don't I promise I will tell you all about it when I get back. I will probably have some pictures to show off too.
/BucketBoy

Thailand here we come

2006-10-30T20:28:00.000+09:00

So we decided to go to Thailand. After a lot of work Asiana finally let me pay for the tickets that I booked online. It was such a hassle, first I couldn't use my Swedish credit card, then I coul, but then it didn't work. Then they told me, no problem just go to our ticket office and pay. Sure, I can do that. At the office I am told, yes you can pick up your tickets here, but the price is higher. Hell no, nobody told me this. Well it ended well, I got the tickets for the original price and we are flying out on Wednesday evening. A day early from what I had first planned, but it is all good.
On Sunday Morgan and I went on tour on one of Seouls palaces, the Changdeokgung. You had to take the guided tour, but we kinda kept our distance to the group so it was almost as if we were on our own (not, there are people everywhere in Korea).
Here are some pictures from our tour. Enjoy!

Vacation??

2006-10-27T10:11:00.000+09:00

So I will hopefully go away for some vacation at the end of next week. Morgan and I have been talking about going to some different places, Vietnam, Thailand or the Phillipines. I guess we were mostly discussing Vietnam, but then partly because of me, time has gotten away from us, and to go to Vietnam you need a visa. So now we are thinking about going some where, where you don't need a visa, and that is why Thailand and the Phillipines is on the list. We are going to a travel agent tomorrow so then we will see where we end up.
Now back to work!
Oh wait, I will leave you with another picture from my China trip. Enjoy!

Water dispenser

2006-10-24T16:22:00.000+09:00

Look at that! Two posts in a row. What has gotten into me, one could ask. Well I guess I enjoy writing to this little blogg, it's just that my discipline and time is a bit lacking sometimes.

Anyway I am enjoying a cup of dry freezed coffee, here in our office. The day is almost over, I have one meeting left and then I will be on my way home to spend some time with Morgan.

I can enjoy that disgusting tasting coffee because about two weeks ago we got a water dispenser machine in our office. That thing is great and you don't realize how much difference it makes until you actually have one. We worked for quite a while before we got it and now I think back on that time and I realize how much nicer it is to be able to have some coffee or tea at the office. It is a small thing that makes a big difference. Our machine gives us both hot and cold water. Yes it is that fancy!

Pig roast and Gandalf

2006-10-23T10:35:00.000+09:00

On Saturday I and Morgan went to a pig roast that some of Morgans friends and coworkers had been invited too. It was really nice because it was a bit outside of Seoul, away from traffic and other big city sounds. I meet some really cool people there and we had a good time with lots of roasted pig, beer and soju. Here is a picture from the evening. I tried to remove the redyes in Picasa, but it didn't work out that well.

Yesterday, I was a bit hungover and me and Morgan had a nice relaxing day in Seoul. First we went to Bennigans and had some food. Morgan got their Monte Christo sandwich, which was really something else. If you ever go to Bennigans you should try it. After that we went to Seoul National Science Museum. It was quite nice just walking around in there and looking at the exhibits. I was kinda of tired, but it was still a lot of fun. On the way back from the museum we passed this huge statue of Gandalf, and since he is Morgan's hero I took a picture of them together.

This post has been a long time coming

2006-10-18T09:17:00.000+09:00

So I guess it is due time for a new post. Last time I wrote something I was in Sweden, working at the TAT headquarters for a week. After that I went to China, Beijing to be more exact, for vacation. In Beijing me and Rasmus did a lot of sightseeing, we were tricked into going to a teahouse and paying too much money for tea.

We went to the Great Wall, which was truly breathtaking, I can really recommend going there. Here is a picture from the wall. We went to a place called Simitai(spelling?) which is supposed to a little less touristy because the wall here is quite steep and sometimes hard to climb.

I also managed to get some sort of stomach bug, which surprised me. I mean I have been living in Korea for almost six months and never once had any problems with this sort of thing. I'm in China for one week and bam, there I am running between a hole in the floor and my bed.
Well, after China I came back to Korea and finally got to see Morgan again. During the past weeks it has been a lot of work, but at the same time a lot of fun. Paul and Anders were here last week, and we have two engineers in Gumi so slowly slowly Sweden is strengthening its prescence in Korea.
Let's hope it won't be this long until next post.
/BucketBoy

Back in Sweden

2006-09-10T18:30:00.000+09:00

I am back in Sweden. The plane ride was really long and boring, and much worse than it usually is because of my cold. But now I have been home for a full day and I am starting to feel much better. Yesterday I visited my parents and got to meet their new puppies, Jack and Jill. Aren't they cute? It was really nice spending the day with my parents and my sister and her boyfriend.
Right now me and Chris are just hanging out in my apartment. Later today i am probably going to meet David and maybe even meet Klas, Anetter and little Isabella. Here is is picture of Chris chilling on the couch.

Sore throat and Sweden

2006-09-07T19:56:00.000+09:00

I have caught a little bit of a cold so I haven't been feeling to great these past couple of days. It is no excuse for not posting, but that's the way it is. I am going to Sweden tomorrow and I will be there for a week and then I go to Beijing for one week vacation. That is going to be nice. Right now I am waiting for a meeting and then I have to zoom home and pack all my stuff. Morgan who always treats me to good things has prepared dinner so I am really looking forward to coming home to the apartment and and eating that with her. Next post might be from Sweden or maybe from the airport. You never know.
/BucketBoy

Insomnia

2006-08-30T02:26:00.000+09:00

Don't you just hate it when you feel that you really must sleep, but somehow you can't? It's like that for me right now. It's 2.20 in the night and I am really tired but still I can't fall asleep. I have tried the usual tricks that I do when sleep won't come to me. I read a little, I take deep and slow breaths and try and relax and not think of anything, yet somehow my mind wanders to what needs to be done tomorrow and how tired I will be because I am not sleeping now. So I thought I might try getting tired by writing this post. I will have to deal with tomorrow when that comes.
/BucketBoy

Monday again!

2006-08-28T11:20:00.000+09:00

Here we are a new Monday has arrived and the work week is just beginning. This week will be exciting workwise because this week we will move into our new office. We need to do some furniture shopping and cleaning but after that we will start working like busy little bees.
The weekend that was, was fun and relaxing. We tried to go sightseeing in Suwon, but some heavy rain showers put a stop to that. Instead we went shopping at the mall by the train station (we got some books), and then later me and Morgan went to Seoul. Yesterday we spent the day shopping for birthday gifts in Seoul. Both my sister and my mom has had their birhtdays, and I am going home in about a week and a half so I want to bring something nice for them.
Now I will go back to work.
/BucketBoy

Busy busy

2006-08-22T23:14:00.000+09:00

Well I have been busy busy, but that is no excuse for not posting here. I really need to get my act together and start updating more often. I've been thinking about writing a post about korean bus drivers and how you risk your life every time you take the bus here, but it just hasn't happened yet. If I am not to lazy I might post something about it this weekend, but I won't make any promises.
/BucketBoy

Metallica in Seoul

2006-08-16T09:04:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was Korea's independence day and what better way to celebrate that than going to a Metallica concert. Tool was the support band and even though I didn't get to see to much of them, what I saw seemed to be really good.
I tried taking some pictures, but they didn't turn out to so good with my little camera.
The most fun at the concert was seeing all the people go crazy and rock out when their favourite songs came on. Metallica were stable as always and it was a really good show overall. This is what me and Rasmus looked like.

Yeah it was hot as hell last night that is why my face is melting.

Still alive

2006-08-08T23:34:00.000+09:00

No I am not dead so that is not the reason why I haven't posted in a while. The reason for that is I have been abducted by aliens, or as we say in Korea I have been busy working. I did go out last weekend and that was a blast, I will post some pictures of that later and I hope that I will get, nay, take some more time posting here. I like blogging, but sometimes I just forget.
/BucketBoy

Raw

2006-08-03T00:02:00.000+09:00

Paul arrived yesterday, and today he came down to Suwon for some meetings. I was going to take a picture but the battery in the camera gave up and needed charging, so we are left with no photo.
Among other things we went and had a look at our new office. I am really looking forward to moving in there. We also had a meeting at the old office here in Korea and it was really warm and sweaty. It is getting hot here now, really hot.
After the workday we went to Seoul for dinner at Raw. It was delicious as always, and I think we are going again on Monday when some more TAT people arrive. I should be sleeping now, but I am not tired. Oh well I guess I will go back to bed and toss and turn some more.
/BucketBoy

Paul is coming!

2006-07-31T18:25:00.000+09:00

This week Paul will visit us here in Korea. That usually means a lot of work and fun! The past weekend me and Morgan just loitered on the Saturday and then on Sunday we went for a little shopping spree. It was mostly me shopping, but Morgan did get a pair of really nice Converse shoes. Maybe a picture of those will find it's way to this site soon. The picture that goes with this post is a picture of Sunday's lunch. Pizza at the Pizza Mall. It looks tastier than it actually was, but that's not saying it was bad. Morgan and I also decided to work on a little project together. More on that later, now it is time to fill the belly!
/BucketBoy

Dinner party!

2006-07-25T16:06:00.000+09:00

So the dinner party we went to last Sunday was really great! Lots of Indian food and lots of fun and interesting people. I had a really good time and I was totally stuffed when I got back home. Had to lay down in order not to explode.
Morgan is contemplating a career as a professional soccer player so she has been practising a lot lately as the picture shows.
I hope this dream works out for her.
What else is happening this week? Work of course and then maybe some more work, and maybe a music festival this weekend. We will see!

Morgan in the jungle!

2006-07-23T14:53:00.000+09:00

Tonight we have been invited to a dinner party at this friend of ours. It is going to be exciting I think, Our friend is from India and there will be a lot of indians at the party.
Earlier today we went to the jungle (CarreFour) to cut down (buy) a plant and bring it as a gift. What do you think? Will they like the present?
/BucketBoy

Working hard or hardly working?

2006-07-20T15:19:00.000+09:00

This is my coworker Petter showing us all how you shouldn't be positioned when you work. I have to say though that I feel like being in that exact position as him but without the computer and with a pillow instead. Me and Petter had two hard days in Gumi and I am going back for more tomorrow. This weekend I think I just want to relax with Morgan and maybe go to the movies. Morgan mentioned something about Pirates of the Carribean 2. We will see what happens.
\BucketBoy

Quick post from Gumi

2006-07-18T17:53:00.000+09:00

So I am back in Gumi again. I will spend the night and then work all day tomorrow and then take the train back to Suwon and then crash in my bed so that I can get up on Thursday to continue with some more work. Anyways I have Petter with me and that is fun. I think we will go out and have some dinner soon, just some quick email checking first. Oh yeah, the image is from Coex (a big shopping mall and convention center in Seoul). I saw these three cute little doll things...oh wait that one in the middle is Morgan my incredibly cute girlfriend!
/BucketBoy

Rainy lazy Sunday

2006-07-16T12:30:00.000+09:00

The rain just keeps coming down and that kind of weather makes me tired and lazy. Good thing it is a Sunday then. At the moment me and Morgan are hanging out in the bed. She is on her mac and I alternate between my new Macbook and my Dell work laptop. We are such nerds. I think we will just vege out all day, computing, playing video games and maybe watching a movie. Our coworker Petter arrived yesterday so I guess we should see him today as well.
/BucketBoy

My first step into the Mac world

2006-07-15T21:04:00.000+09:00

So there it is! My new computer. It works really well and it is fun to paly around with Mac OsX and all the iLife programs. Haven't really done much today. I went out and got this baby with Morgan. I have had a slight headache all day. I really hope I'm not getting sick.
/BucketBoy

Rain, dead computer and maybe a new computer

2006-07-13T21:11:00.000+09:00

It has been raining alot lately. This is actually the raining season here in Korea so it is not that strange. I read on the Korean Heralds webpage today that the rain has actual taken some lives.
My private computer gave up a couple of nights ago. It seems to be the graphics chip that is acting up. I am not sure how easy it will be to fix (if it will even be possible) so I have decided that I will buy this on Saturday. It will be my first Mac and I am really excited about it. I will trick it out with some more ram (2 Gb maybe) and then I will be ready to mac away. I will post some pictures of my new toy when I get it.
/BucketBoy

My new toy

2006-07-11T17:52:00.000+09:00

I forgot to write about this baby! They installed it on Saturday, but they did a crap job so they had to come back yesterday and fix it. I get really irritated when I think about the job they did so I don't really want to write about it. All that matters is that everything seems to be ok now and the thing keeps me cool and I can sleep again. Sweet!!!
/BucketBoy

Omurice

2006-07-10T17:29:00.000+09:00

Here is the picture of the omurice dinner that I had on Saturday. It is rice covered by a very thin omelette, and then I had a chicken kebab with mine.
Yesterday I just relaxed with my poor sick Morgan. We made tuna and eggsalad sandwiches and ate them with dill pickles and some chips (American style). It was good.
Today we have been working and now it is time for dinner.
/BucketBoy

The weekend that was

2006-07-10T16:38:00.000+09:00

So last saturday we went to the Seodaemun Prison in Seoul. This prison was used by the japanese during the japanes occupation of Korea. The prison was used to imprison Korean freedom fighters and it was known for its cruel torture and bad living conditions. I think the prison is well worth visiting but some of the showcases were pretty cruel so I wouldn't recommend it to small children (there were lots of korean kids, but you could see that some of them got scared by the exhibition).
The picure is of me in a standing coffin. They put prisoners in these standing coffins and after a few days people would be paralyzed, or at least that is what the sign said that described this torture device.
Later on we went to Gangnam and had some omurice for dinner. I will post a picture of that too.
/BucketBoy

Hungry

2006-07-07T18:28:00.000+09:00

After a long day working (it was quite a productive day) I am hungry as a wolf. Today I will go with Rasmus and have some Shabu Shabu. The link describes the japanese version and I guess the korean version is a little bit different. I find it really tasty and it is going to be a nice treat for my tired little brain and body. Maybe I will snap a picture of our dinner and post it here later.
/BucketBoy

North Korean missile launch

2006-07-05T17:44:00.000+09:00

I forgot to talk about this in the last post. Well yesterday North Korea test launched 5 ( I think five) missiles at the same time as the US sent their spac shuttle up. I talked to some of my south-korean friends today and asked them what they thought about all this. It seems like most south koreans feel that this has happened before and that it will probably amount to nothing. I really hope they are right.
/BucketBoy

It is going to be a cool summer

2006-07-05T17:31:00.000+09:00

Today we went out and bought air conditioners. It was a lot harder to get what we wanted than I thought it would be. First of all I am not used to AC:s. I usually live in Sweden so I don't know much about how they work. I didn't know that you usually have to have one big fan for every little machine that you have in the house, but apparantely that is the standard way of doing it. Now there are fans that can deliver enough effect for two or three little machines but then everything gets real expensive.
Anyway we have finally bought AC and if we are lucky it will be installed this Friday. That is something I really like about Korea. They deliver things quickly and delivery and installment (if needed) is always included in the price. I wish it was like that in Sweden.
Tonight I will continue my quest to watch all seasons of Alias. I am at the end of season 2 so maybe I will finish all seasons by the end of the summer.
/BucketBoy

Instead of words you get a picture!

2006-07-03T22:34:00.000+09:00

I thought maybe I would post a picture instead of writing a bunch. It is an old picture of a fruit plate we got when we were out a couple of months ago.
It was good!!
/BucketBoy

So tired

2006-07-03T22:21:00.000+09:00

I really feel like posting, but I am too tired to write anything that is worth reading. I will just link to my friends blog's: Paul Blomdahl, Klas Skogmar. Maybe these guys have more energy than I do today.
/BucketBoy

Where did the weekend go?

2006-07-02T22:48:00.000+09:00

So I am sitting here, it is Sunday night and I am wondering what happened to my weekend. We were going to go and ses the Suwon City Walls, but yesterday the weather was kinda crap so we just went for a couple of walks around the surrounding area. We went to this Outlet for designer clothes and I expected to see outlet prices. Boy was I fooled, it seemed to me at least that they had full price on most of the stuff they were selling.
Today I helped Morgan move some stuff to her new apartment. Her apartment is on campus at the Seoul English Village. It is all totally new, in fact they are still finishing up some things so there were a bunch of construction workers around. It sure will be nice when it is done though. They hadn't installed any warm water in the apartments yet, so Morgan decided to come and spend the night here in Suwon. We also went to CostCo. It is alot of fun to go there. They have some western foods that are hard to find in other grocery stores around here so you get all giddy when you se cheese and other things that you didn't really know you missed until you saw them again.
Ok gotta go to sleep now, I have a trip to Gumi tomorrow so I got to get up early.
/BucketBoy

Friday at last

2006-06-30T18:01:00.000+09:00

Another work week is to an end, or at least almost. (Still have some work to do). I have had a pretty good day today. I had some meetings and I worked with an engineer to do some upgrading. The engineer I work with is really cool. He is from India, but he lives here in Korea and has done so for a couple of years now. I always enjoy shooting the breeze with him.
What's up for the weekend? I don't know yet. Some rest and maybe some fun activity. I want to take Morgan to the Suwon City Walls. It is quite nice, but I guess it depends on the weather. The photo is from the walls when I was there with my coworker Rasmus last year.

Welcome to the world Isabella!!

2006-06-29T16:41:00.000+09:00

Klas and Anette, two of my best friends had a baby last Saturday. Little baby Isabella, she is the cutest thing you will ever see. I want to congratulate them and wish them all the best. You guys are supercool!

Any comments?

2006-06-28T15:00:00.000+09:00

I forgot to mention in the last post that I now have enabled comments for everybody. But be weary! All comments have to be approved by me so if you want to critisize please do so constructively, not childishly! Ok? Ok! Good! That is all.

Hot and humid!!

2006-06-28T14:32:00.000+09:00

So I am sitting here at the office working and trying not to disappear in a puddle of sweat. It is hot in our office, but it wouldn't be so bad if it was only hot. The thing is it is also humid. Turn on the AC you say. I wish I could, but we don't have AC in this office. What really kills me though is that this is only the beginning. It will get so much more humid than it is now. Just give it a couple of weeks. But at the same time I kinda like it. At least during the day. At night it is not so good. Alright time for some more water!!

Mr Pizza - made for women

2006-06-27T21:27:00.000+09:00

I just had some pizza with my dear girlfriend Morgan and with Rasmus. Pizza from Mr Pizza and two episodes of My name is Earl. That show is hilarious so far. Only seen two episodes but already laughed enough for four. That is good.
Anyway Mr Pizza is a pizza place here in Korea and their motto is: made for women Mr Pizza. I don't know why they have it, but it is kinda funny.
Had a pretty good day today. Lots of work as usual but also fun so it is alright. We might move to a new office and I had a chance to take a look at that today. Looks really nice, I really hope we get it. Ok time for some more web surfing and then off to bed. Have a nice one!

/BucketBoy

Swedish midsummer in Korea

2006-06-26T20:58:00.000+09:00

First off, I have been very bad at posting, I know. I will try and remedy that from now. I am back in Korea again, and it has been a hectic couple of weeks. Last Friday it was midsummer in Sweden and we had a midsummer party here in Korea. Man, that party was a blast! Me, Rasmus, Paul and Morgan organized the whole thing and we invited both koreans and swedes. I think everybody had a good time even though we didn't have any herring (that is what you eat at midsummer). We did have schnaps and beer and lots of other alcohol so I think that made up for the herring. Paul and Rasmus went to Seoul in the early morning to watch Koreas soccer game in the world cup. They went to the City Hall in Seoul and it was jammed packed with people. Unfortunately Korea didn't win the game, but it still seemed like a cool thing. Ok now I will go back to watching Alias Season 2.
/BucketBoy

Quick trip to Sweden

2006-06-02T12:39:00.000+09:00

So I finally get my blog started, and I am supposed to write about Korea. What is the first thing I do? I go back to Sweden. Funny how things work! Well well, I will only be in Sweden for nine days so I will soon be back in Korea.

Right now I'm leeching of my coworkers gold card, so I am sitting in the air port lounge posting this. Quite nice!

I wanted to post a picture of some interesting Korean sight, but the connection here is a little bit slow and I am tired and have no patience to wait for it to upload, so you will have to wait until next time.
/Bucketboy signing off

First Post

2006-06-01T14:42:00.000+09:00

Hello,
so finally I got a blog started. The idea from the beginning was to build my own blog, but time wouldn't allow me, so I succumbed to using blogger. I think this will work for me, at least for a while. Well anyways, this blog will be about my time in South-Korea. I have already been here for 3 months, and I like it, even though work is killing me at times. My ambitions for this blog are high, and hopefully I will at least post a couple a times a week. Ok that is it for now.
/BucketBoy