Sightseeing in Korea

I recently went to Korea for a conference, and I intentionally stayed an extra two days so that I could have a chance to do some sightseeing.

Of course two days isn't nearly enough to explore an entire country, but I did my best to see a bunch of things. I took one of the very touristy "hop-on, hop-off" buses that runs loops around the sights of Seoul. I "hopped off" at a traditional village.

Figure: Traditional village, right in the middle of modern Seoul.

Turns out, the traditional village didn't have much to do, because it wasn't set up as museum or anything, it's just a bunch of empty buildings. Neat architecture, but moving on, moving on...

I attempted to "hop on" that bus, which was supposed to come around every 20 minutes, but I waited thirty minutes and saw no sign of my bus. I did however see every possible city bus route, and approximately seventilly buses from other touristy companies, just to taunt me. Just as I was pondering buying a ticket for one of those OTHER hop-on-hop-off companies, who actually seemed to be in the "hopping-on" business instead of just the "hopping-off" side - my bus finally appeared.

I went to see Seoul Tower, which is like the Empire State Building in that the only reason people go, is to make it to the top and look out. So I went. Rode to the top. Looked out the side. Tried to take pictures, but the windows were dirty.

Huh?

The one attraction is to look out, and the windows are crusted up? Come on now... Also it was a twenty minute wait to get to the elevator to go back down. How is that possible? Doesn't conservation of mass indicate that if I only had to wait 5 minutes to go UP, there shouldn't be a twenty minute line to get DOWN? Tis a mystery...

On Saturday night, a bunch of us went out to the local clubs. Since I was sightseeing with four single guys, I was not surprised that they were way more excited about this than I was. In contrast to Boston, where the bars and clubs all close at 2am, the nightlife never stops in Seoul. The subway stops running from 1am to 5am, so the common thing is to stay out at least to 5am, so you can get home. I went home at 3am (by cab, thank you very much), but the guys apparently made a night of it.

I have to say that the clubbing scene is much different than Boston. In Seoul, the clubs are packed into one area, with people pouring out into the streets and just hanging out on the sidewalks, and the feeling is incredibly alive and vibrant. And in the clubs, the music of choice is techno/electronic. In Boston, you can't have alcohol outside, so everybody is inside, and the common music is hip-hop, or house music. 

Let me just say that I'm not bad as a dancer, (especially as an engineer), but I could not for the life of me figure out how to dance to techno. Fortunately once the club got busy, there was no need - everybody was packed in so tightly, it hardly mattered. It was an experience I wouldn't have missed - the lasers, light show, special effects, and electric atmosphere were pretty incredible.

Until 3am. And then nothing but bed is incredible in my book.

Sunday I took a tour to the DMZ - the border between North and South Korea. This was actually my favorite part of the trip. It's pretty fascinating to hear the history of Korea, which I only knew a little about. For instance, there is a railroad that goes from South Korea to North Korea and back that ran every day from 2003-2008. Did you know that? I had no idea. I thought that border has been sealed with machine guns ever since the DMZ was established.

The plan was to bring raw materials from the South, manufacture items using cheap labor in the North, and then have huge warehouses to store the goods. It's pretty incredible that enough companies got together to finance such a risky venture, I think. For a while it worked great, and then a North Korean guard shot a South Korean woman on the train, and they shut it down. So now there is the brand new train station, and giant warehouses, just sitting empty. It's eerie, really.

Also cool to learn that four tunnels have been discovered underneath the border. The North Koreans claim the tunnels were built to invade towards the north, but since all the dynamite marks are going south, and the tunnel slopes toward the south, it's pretty obvious the purpose was to invade South Korea... And the DMZ tour lets you go down and walk in these tunnels. The closest you can get to the North Korean border is 170 meters, which is where you are stopped by a concrete wall. So folks, I've been as close to North Korea as I care to get. This lady writes about the same tour with much more elegance and better photos than I, so you can visit her blog for her take.

Sunday we visited a traditional temple, which was beautiful and calm.

Still surrounded by Seoul, but peaceful nonetheless. It's a functioning temple, so people were there praying and lighting incense.

And the artwork and detailed architecture - gorgeous. Why can't churches in the US be like this? We pat ourselves on the back when we hang a nice banner on the putty-white wall above the gray Berber carpet, or when we put a few flowers on the stage once a year for Easter. These people paint every ceiling (see above)

... put sculptures on the church grounds...

...and hang colorful, cheerful pendants that dance in the breeze.

Beauty in nature and creativity in expression are part of God's gifts as well, and I might enjoy going to church more if it looked more like this. :) It's one of the things I have always enjoyed about Catholic churches in particular, actually.

Anyway - in conclusion, Seoul was an adventure I will not soon forgot. I enjoyed seeing the city, tried to experience some of the culture, and definitely established that I will have to go back in order to fully explore! For instance, I didn't get to go to a tea ceremony, which I would have liked, or go to the outdoor marketplace. Another time, another time. Until then, I will enjoy the memories.

South of the Border Cooking Class

Figure: Miss Outlier, Chef

This is actually a woefully old post, but one of the nice things about establishing a routine is that I can be productive. So I'm getting around to posting things I've always meant to share! Oh wait - productive was supposed to apply to RESEARCH? Details, details...

In February 2010 (gulp - where did the time go?) I took a class from the Cambridge Culinary School of the Arts. The cooking school offers classes on the weekends to the public. Some are series - baking, or international cooking, or just the basics - and some are single day courses. I signed up for a one afternoon class, called South of the Border Cooking. And the best part? Getting to use the professional kitchen! Drooling, drooling...

Figure: We're wearing aprons. Must be official.

Figure: The teaching podium, where the instructor demonstrated techniques.

Look at that cool mirror above the instructor's table - it shows you the bird's eye view, so you can see the ingredients and watch what the hands are doing!

The class had ten people, and the instructor lead us through making an authentic Mexican meal. Or at least I'm told it's authentic, how would I know... The students were split between the dishes (or the dishes between the students?), so one or two people would work on each recipe.

Figure: Other students intent on preparing their dishes.

The recipes we prepared were the following (and yay, I got to take home all the recipes!):

Marinated and Grilled Shrimp with a Chipotle Pepper Sauce
Chicken Mole
Grilled Flank Steak with Ancho Chili Cream Sauce
Green Rice
Chicken Fajitas
Fresh Tomato Salsa
Guacamole
Salsa Verde
Refried Beans
Grilled Pork Tenderloin with a Peach and Macadamia Nut Salsa
Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

Does that not just make your mouth water? YUM! I was assigned the chocolate cake (no need to twist my arm on that one, I assure you).

Figure: Measuring out Mexican chocolate for my dessert

It was neat to hear the other students in class chattering away with their teammates. These two ladies in particular kept the class lively!

Figure: Ladies making roasted peppers.

 I claimed a saucepan and spot at the stove, to make the chocolate topping sauce.

Figure: That's heavy cream. Oh yes.

Because the kitchen was all open, I could peek over shoulders and watch the other dishes come together.

Figure: Preparations for mole chicken.

Figure: Chicken being mole-d.

I felt like a fancy chef on a TV show - I got to have fun with the presentation (or, "plating") as well as actually making the dessert.

Figure: Plates for the chocolate cakes, dusted with cocoa powder.

 At this point, the ladies making the shrimp appetizers finished the dish, so we all got to take a mid-class break and sample our efforts!

Figure: Shrimp, completed quickly, as appetizers are meant to be - and eaten quickly, as good food is meant to be!

After our break, I continued on and finished making my little cakes in individual ramekins.

Figure: Miss Outlier at work!

The kitchen smelled so good, it was ridiculous.

Figure: Grilled Flank Steak

Figure: Setting up the buffet. You can see green rice, flank steak, refried beans, and chicken mole.

Figure: Our instructor (see the hat? nobody else got a hat).

Figure: Meat! Pork and chicken.

When everything was ready and set out on the buffet, the whole class got to enjoy the meal.

Figure: Sitting down together.

One of the couples taking the class had brought Mexican beer to pair with the meal, and they generously shared with the class. Seemed only appropriate!

Figure: South of the Border, baby.

Let's get a close up of that, shall we?

Figure: Oh, life is good.

It's really cool how food brings people together. At the beginning of the day, none of us knew each other. At the end of the afternoon, we were laughing and joking and passing the salsa.

FIgure: Because really, who doesn't like food?

I ducked out of dinner a bit early to put the finishing touches on dessert. And because one of the students had a birthday, the instructor even provided a little candle for one of the cakelets. How cute!

Figure: Looks downright professional, if I do say so myself.

 The finished dessert:

Figure: Basically a chocolate lava cake made with Mexican chocolate, topped with a fudge sauce and whipped cream.

The day was a success - I learned a lot, ate good food, and got to indulge my inner Julia Child! Maybe someday I'll take another class... the baking series looks particularly tempting...

Yoga

In undergrad, I had roommates that used to do Pilates. They convinced me to go with them to a Pilates class exactly twice, and I found it to be thinly veiled torture. I wasn't strong enough or flexible enough to do any of the moves properly, so it primarily consisted of me stumbling through the class trying to imitate the teacher.

My roommates told me it was "relaxing and invigorating." I found it anything but. I much preferred to go out to the workshop and sand on the canoe I was building. Sanding, now THAT is a therapeutic activity.

But two different friends of mine have been raving to me about the yoga classes they are taking. There is a highly-rated yoga studio only a fifteen minute walk from where I live (and, only ten minutes from my office). And I know that yoga is supposed to be really good for you.

So, with some trepidation, this January I started going to some yoga classes with my friends, about one a week. I didn't know what to expect for my first class, but to my surprise it was phenomenal. The teacher was excellent (at least I thought so, though what do I know?), and showed both challenging poses and modified versions for beginners like me. There were all levels of students in the class, and everyone could participate as best as they were able.

Something about the class just really resonated with me - at the end of class, I felt like I had stretched muscles that had sat dormant for a long time, and at the same time challenged the strength of my body. Like I had connected my mind and body and breathing. I don't subscribe to the spiritual aspect of yoga, but calming your mind, noticing how you are feeling internally, and providing your body what it needs is really powerful.

The yoga studio I've been going to is almost exclusively a "hot yoga" studio, where the classes are taught at 95-100 F. I had been making my friend go with me to the unheated classes, because I wanted to get used to the yoga part first before I added the heated part. But it turns out that "unheated" just means they turn off the heater for the class, but it's still pretty hot because the previous class was heated, and if you know any heat transfer principles you realize it doesn't cool down instantly!

This Sunday I bit the bullet, and my friend and I went to a heated class. I got over the fact that yes, I was going to be dripping sweat - I just brought a towel, and figured it's okay because the rest of the class is sweating too. Turns out the heat helps with the stretching, and forces you to really relax and breathe if you want to be able to balance and hold difficult poses. In short, I loved it!

Indeed, I might even say it was "relaxing and invigorating"!

Ground School

This semester I am taking a not-for-credit class that I am really excited about - Private Pilot Ground School. I have always wanted to get a pilot's license (it's on my wish list), and it turns out that the Flying Club here at World's Best School teaches a class every semester that helps you get your license.

To get a private pilot's license, you have to take a written exam, an oral exam, and then the actual flight exam. The Ground School class is intended to teach you all the knowledge necessary for the written exam. Some things about flying a plane you can't learn until you actually, you know, FLY the plane, but there's a lot you can learn on the ground. Thus, Ground School.

As a side note - if I get a pilot's license, I can add it to my driver's license and my scuba diving license, and now I'm all set for land, air and sea! Just call me Double - O....

The first class was this past Wednesday. Now when I was in undergrad, I did an Aerospace option for my senior year, so I have taken a couple Aero classes. I figured given that experience, I'd probably be familiar with at least some of the material. I skimmed the slides for the first ground school class ahead of time (overachiever bug is still alive and well after all these years in school), and I thought - well I have this in the bag.

So I walked into class the first day quite full of myself - didn't even bring paper and pencil to take notes. I leaned back in my chair, looking around at all the incredibly young faces in class, feeling smugly superior in my grad student status.

And for the first part of class, I did indeed have it under control. "This is an airplane," said the instructor, gesturing to an inflatable model, "This is the wing, and this is the engine." Easy, easy. We continued on. "This is an aileron, on the wing, and the elevator on the horizontal stabilizer, and the rudder on the vertical stabilizer. These are your control surfaces." the instructor explained as she pointed to each piece.

Still good! I have actually physically built all those parts. I helped build small remote-controlled airplanes in undergrad, so I am quite familiar with all the various flaps and structural pieces. And my speciality is control systems, so I even have a good idea how those control surfaces affect the plane.

We continued on, going over things like "Don't Drink and Fly" (the rule is eight hours bottle to throttle), and the different kinds of licenses you can get (multi-engine, commercial, instrument, etc.). As the instructor flipped through the slides, I glanced at the clock - the class goes 6 to 8pm, and it was about 7pm. I hadn't had dinner yet, and my stomach was starting to let me know.

The instructor also glanced up at the clock, realized both that it was halfway through class, and that she was not halfway through her material. "Okay class," she said, "We're going to have to speed up."

So we started flying (ha!) through the slides, at the same point the material was becoming new to me. Is the plane stable in roll? Stable in yaw? Stable in pitch? If the answer is yes, is it positively stable, neutrally stable, statically stable or dynamically stable? Or all of the above? None?

Ack! By the time we got through that section I was convinced that while a plane, in flight, COULD theoretically be stable, in my hands it would quite probably go UNstable quickly and dramatically. In fact we watched several painful YouTube videos to underscore how terribly, terribly things can go wrong in a plane. (How helpful, thank you!)

And then.

THEN.

"Now," chirped the instructor, "we will talk about turning the plane."

 This is where my brain exploded.

To turn the plane to the left, for instance, you roll the plane left. The instructor drew a nice diagram on the board of the wings, tipped to the left. Now when you roll left, you create more lift on one wing than the other. The different lifts cause different drags, so you end up yawing to the left as well.

More pretty arrows were added to the diagram.

In addition when you roll left, the net force vector is now pointed at an angle, and your total force is now split into a vertical and horizontal component. That means you have less total lift going up, so your nose points down, and you have to compensate by pitching up.

Now we're in three dimensions, and the instructor had run out of ways to draw arrows, so she gestures with chalkboard erasers.

I have decided that if by some miracle I can prevent my plane from going unstable, I am never going to be able to turn. I will just have to pick an airport that is directly lined up with my final destination. Six degrees of freedom? Are you Aero people nuts? Thank goodness my MechE career only deals with a few degrees of freedom at a time....

Reeling from thinking about forces in three dimensions, I glanced again at the clock. 7:30pm. My stomach was talking to me now, and it wasn't a happy conversation.

"And now," said the teacher, "we are going to learn the really important information."

Really? Now?

"Now, listen closely, because here's the proceedure for getting out of a spin..."

Oh, no. This I may have to pay attention to. I stared as she drew on the board, spelling out acronyms for "easy memorization." Where was that paper and pencil I was too arrogant to bring??

"Okay. Now in addition to a spin, you may also get into a stall. So here's how you get out of that."

More acronyms. "And CAREFUL! This particular procedure is not instinctive, and in fact your instinct will be to do the exact OPPOSITE." Oh gees....

"And finally, class, we need to go over what to do in case your engine stops."

Okay, now, enough is enough! I'm going to need dinner for this... :)

I did try to pay attention to the engine-out case, but man I was starving, and my poor brain was fried from trying to think in six degrees of freedom. I left class no longer as smug as I was going in.

And now with the benefit of a few days to ponder the material, I waffle between thinking flying a plane isn't all that hard and that it is designed to inherently positively stable, and thinking that there is an infinte number of ways to screw things up and spiral into the ground. Still, I am very excited about the class and about eventually getting my license. If anything, I have learned that I need dinner ahead of time! Give me a sandwich, I'll read up over the weekend on the spin, stall, and engine-out scenarios, and then bring on next week!

Weeding the Garden

I wanted to share with you pictures from earlier this summer, when I took a trip home to see my family. My parent's house has an extensive garden, which had gotten a little out of hand.

I decided to do a little weeding.

And of course, being an engineer, and the daughter of my father, I know that every project begins with the proper tools. (Life lesson courtesy of my dad, and it has served me well.)

So what do you do when the garden has random TREES growing in it that you don't want? Maple and oak trees have a pesky way of sprouting everywhere in forest-type areas...

Clearly in that case the correct tool is not a hoe or shovel, but a backhoe.

A backhoe, you say? Where would you find one of those?

In our backyard, of course! My mother insists that it be parked BEHIND the house, so as not to scare the neighbors any more than they already are.

For those of you not, ahem, too familiar with running construction equipment - to operate the rear scoop, you turn around backwards (thus facing the scoop), and the controls are located there. See the above picture.

In the above picture, I am also moving the rear scoop. It's advanced (or lazy...) technique - I haven't turned the seat around.

The steering and driving works as you would expect, with the driver facing forward in the cab. But our backhoe actually has a bit of a bug in the system - the brakes don't work. The clutch does, so if you are on level ground you just take it out of gear.

If you are on a slope and want to stop - well, you have a couple options. The simplest is to just put down the scoop to anchor yourself to the ground.

The above picture is also advanced technique - the other way to stop is to carefully drive forward until you get where you want, then when you start to slide forward, throw it in reverse. Or, you can just make sure you don't ever have to stop. :)

My dad also realizes that having "the right tools" includes clothing - so for physical work, he breaks out the overalls. The overalls are from my Grandpa, who actually is a farmer. He makes sure all of his kids and grandkids are properly outfitted whenever we go visit the farm.

This, in my book, is a picture of a day well spent. The garden was (mostly) weeded, I was dirty, my mother got to take pictures, and all involved parties walked away happy.

Diving With Sharks!

Last year, I had planned to go diving with sharks. It didn't end up happening, but when the same trip was rescheduled for this summer - you bet I signed up!

Once again, I gathered up all the dive gear. I was carpooling with other people, and they wanted me to be at their house by 4:30. That's AM. The subway doesn't even run that early!

Fortunately, my friend took pity on me and let me sleep over the night before, to avoid having to take a cab at 4 in the morning.

Now, the dive master had sent out a sheet on how to avoid seasickness. I followed those instructions to the letter. One Dramamine the night before, an additional one the morning of (although I contend that 4am is still the night before). No coffee, no acidic juice, a small filling breakfast so as to have something in the stomach. No drinking the night before (easy, of course), and a good night's sleep. The recommendation was to go to bed at 9pm, but I can't sleep that early - but I at least was in bed by 11pm.

There were five of us driving down to Rhode Island for the trip. Nobody else took Dramamine, and everybody but me had coffee in the morning. Two of the girls didn't go to bed until 2:30am, and then got up at 4am. And then they had greasy Egg McMuffins along with their coffee in the morning.

Guess who wasn't sick? And guess which other people were heaving over the side for the whole trip? Yeppers, Miss Outlier was very glad she can follow instructions!

Thanks to Bill Buckley for the following pictures.

Here's me, with the shark cage just loaded into the boat. It's pretty small, no?

Figure: First we loaded the shark cage on the boar, in preparation for the 1.5 hr ride out to sea.

When we got out to a good spot, we tossed chum in the ocean (fish oil and fish guts and chopped up fish) to attract the sharks. The seasick people loved that, let me tell you. :)

And then we waited for the sharks to show up. And fished while we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And JUST as we were about to give up for the day, this guy showed up:

Well hello! We quickly got into out gear, and jumped onto the shark cage to take a look.

The shark came over to investigate.

At this point we thought we'd better get into the cage. Well, I got into the cage. The photographer didn't want to have the bars of the cage in the photos, so he stayed outside just swimming around.

The shark decided to investigate the camera.

I was watching from that platform. That's my face you can barely see up between the bars. I was plenty close.

But the photographer is even closer. Yikes!

Well actually, I was pretty close too. :) It was so thrilling to watch this shark swimming around me. I just wanted to reach out and touch it - bad idea, of course, but the feeling is there. That big 'ol shark eye staring at me reminded me that you don't mess with these creatures.

Well hello to you too, Mr. Shark! After a while, we tagged the shark with an encoded tag for data collection purposes. That made him irritated, so he swam away.

Here's the group of us, coming up for air after the shark was gone. I'm the back left person - it's hard to tell apart the wetsuits... Such an adventurous crew!

We loaded up the cage, and headed home for the day. I slept on the hour and a half ride home, because, well, I got up at 4am that morning. :)

Fantastic day all around, out between the sky and the waves and the depths below. Who knows, maybe someday I'll do it again!