Franny's adventures in Korea

12/20/2014:  Sunday -- Very comfortable flight to Seoul -- It was an Airbus 380, so the whole upper level was business class.  All cream interior with light green seats, and a bevy of young, gorgeous flight attendants in cream and light green.  They had the most adorable uniform--little scarves around their neck whose corners  stick up at jaunty angles, and loops of ribbon as a hairpiece.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

they were serving a v. nice Medoc (French, red) in tiny glasses, but I drank way too many of them.  There were the usual elegant meals in tiny portions (I chose the Korean options, and practiced saying thankyou).  

I was in an interior seat, and the shades were closed a lot of the time, so couldn't see outside.  I took 1/2 an Ambien, and napped for a few hours.  Also read a Stephanie Baron (mysteries w/ Jane Austen as protagonist) and (ironically) Hand to Mouth, a screed on what it's like to be poor.

They had arranged for a car to pick me up -- v. luxurious-- but there's a bus from the hotel I'll take back to the airport. 

Had dinner at a nearby Korean BBQ place -- v. tasty, but T, my boss, and I really didn't know what to do with all the condiments and salads--there were 3 salads to share, a huge bowl of soup with what looked like chunks of liver floating in it, and a bowl of pickle-y things.  Tony got a beer that was way bigger than he expected, so we shared it.

so life is good, so far.

Monday:  We don't leave for the office (we being T & me) for an hour, so I can continue this breathless account of The Delights of Seoul.  The breakfast buffet is incl. in our room charge (good thing -- it's $40), but I've never seen such a spread.  I guess because so many nationalities stay here -- there's traditional breakfast from India, Korea, Japan, Europe (so vg smoked salmon) -- one could sit and contemplate it all day.  Pity we're have to tear ourselves away & go to the office.

The NY Times has a piteous tale of a 4 yr old Ebola orphan -- I wanted to swoop over, sweep her up in my arms, & take her home -- I and thousands of others, I'm sure.

I slept till 4 something, so not bad, went & did the treadmills for 1/2 hour (I need to work the conversions to metric for my weight & habitual 4.5 mi/hr).  Life is good.

Did I relate our file transfer woes?  The FTP site we were using got closed -- it didn't meet standards -- but no one told us, and a new one isn't opened yet.  So the files we need to send Korea traveled out on my hard drive, but to get them of has to wait until I'm approved to use a flash drive, data loss being strictly controlled.  When I last looked, it hadn't gone through.

Wednesday:  some struggles w/ jet lag -- wake up @ 3:30 or 4, and then get terribly sleepy in the afternoon.  Koreans seem to like their rooms toasty-warm--the conf room we were in the other day was heated to 28 C, which doesn't help.

It's 10F out right now, going to a high of 29F today, but tomorrow's a bit warmer, high of 39.  That's nippy, though, to my mind.  People are bundled up in winter jackets, but most don't wear hats.  T (my boss) forgot his hat & gloves on this trip, and is bald -- and he has a lined raincoat rather than a winter jacket, so gets cold.

He's pretty well read, e.g. was talking about Moby Dick at lunch (which he'd read a few years ago) and contrasting it w/ the movie w/ Gregory Peck.  He's also read Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen -- only man I've ever met who has.  

First lunch, on Monday, JS (the chief actuary) and the Controller took us out to lunch -- a seemingly infinite procession of salads and soups and then, when I thought they were done, the main course, which we were too stuffed to eat much of.

Interstellar is a hit movie here -- everyone's talking about it.  I had only a vague recollection of NPR pieces on wormholes, and A's review of it w/ Steve.

The first couple days were mostly T talking to Mi (the Korean E&Y actuary), and I must admit hard to stay awake through.  Mi is maybe late 30's or early 40's -- she's from Korea but her husband isn't -- they live in HK.  Has daughters 3 & 6, who have Philippine nannies (two) and go to Chinese school, so the daughters speak Cantonese & Mandarin.  Her husband (also an actuary?  not clear) travels a lot, and has morning phone calls w/ Europe & evening phone calls w/ the US.  So the little girls tell the parents "Shhh, I'm on a phone call" at times.  The only time everyone's together is mostly breakfast.

They speak English, not Korean, at home -- her husb not Korean--

She was in Vietnam last week, and Seoul this week, so tropical heat to sub-arctic chill.

Below the Chief Actuary (JS), all the actuaries I've been dealing w/ are women--they said women tend to gravitate to multinationals, because English is important there, and maybe also employment practices fairer?

The default lunch place is "katsu"  -- japanese style fried pork cutlet.  I've been able to avoid pork so far, but have ingested a bunch of shellfish w/o realizing -- I haven't been asking because it seemed intrusive at the first lunch, when we were being treated, and eating Korean food was a plus.   Several of the dishes at the lunch place come on little burning-stove stands -- the staff is very casual about rushing through the restaurant with a tray in each hand, stoves flaming away.

I did some worksheets that tried to replicate calculations out of their models (and didn't come terribly close) and there's been a certain amount of back and forth -- the back and forth considerably hampered by our inability to exchange large files, because MetLife's IT people cut off the FTP site we were using, and hasn't yet set up another.  

The files I downloaded to my hard drive before leaving work last Friday I have been able to give to the Korean actuaries, (that is, I have been included now in the group allowed to copy files to a flash drive, and the help desk walked me through how to answer the screens that appear when you copy to the hard drive -- I called the help desk at 3 AM one morning to do that) but the way we get access to the Wilmington servers when out of the office doesn't permit downloading files.  Or, rather, there is a way to set up a VPN, but I'm told the drives aren't mapped correctly.  V. frustrating.

Aren't you fascinated?

I'll be glad to get home.  Keep thinking that no one's lit Hanukkah candles, which makes me sad.  Want to do latkes and pot roast one night while L's home.

Thursday:  to continue this breathless travel-log, the elevators in the MetLife bldg don't talk to each other -- you press the down button on one, and the others don't notice.  On the other hand, they have fancy Japanese style toilet-seats (heated, with all kinds of unmentionable options).

Had lunch with Mi and Brian, at a place that served huge bowls of soup.  Mi's older daughter has 8 activities:  swimming, ballet, Korean lessons, Mandarin, and English--I'm forgetting the other 3.  

The three year old speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, but sometimes she gets upset and won't speak (as 3 year olds are wont to do).

I skyped Steve this morning, and was too late to the gym to get one of the good treadmills.  The one I got, once I entered 64 as my age, wouldn't go faster than a walk.  I tried entering 50, 40, etc, but it saw right through my efforts.  I gave up in disgust.

Did I say that at the Korean place T & I ate in on Wed, the waitress mixed my bibimbap for me with one of the long-handled spoons Koreans use for rice, and then I thought she was going to tell me to open my mouth & spoon feed me.

My Korean is limited -- I can say hello, thank you, and I don't speak Korean and excuse me (as in getting someone's attention). I can't say please, or I'm sorry but apparently they're not used much -- people bump into each other w/o apologizing, and saying "please" sounds like you're desperate.

Tonight's Korean place was v. nice -- the waitress cooked our bbq for us & showed us how to wrap the pieces of meat in a nice green leaf, but didn't seem to think we needed to be hand-fed.  

Friday:  It's 5 PM & I'm back in my hotel room.  not a whole lot to add to the preceding.  Today's lunch was with the strategic actuarial team, which consists of 4 women and 2 men (Lena is my main contact there).  I asked Lena about the preponderance of women & she opined women were better at numbers than men.

They were shocked at the lack of Japanese female actuaries.  Maybe Japanese women aren't as good at math as Chinese & Korean?

Lunch was many, many salads (really enough to have been lunch), followed by spicy vermicelli.  I waddled out, and a couple hours later Lena appeared w/ cake & a persimmon smoothie, since the group was having treats in honor of Xmas I guess.

gym was much emptier this morning -- I got up at 5 but could have slept till 6--there were plenty of good treadmills.

I felt bad -- Lena & company stayed till 9 PM last night trying to answer why one calculation didn't match another, and what did I do today but toss more questions her way.

that's my supply of babble.  I'll be glad to get home.

Saturday:  Got up at 5 (I’d set the hotel alarm, my Galaxy 5 alarm and my blackberry alarm); the airport bus stops on the street outside the hotel and it had snowed overnight, so we had to make our way down a few slippery, slushy steps, which I was having trouble with, when the bellboy came over & grasped my arm and propelled me to the bus (I felt like such an old lady).  I was nervous on the bus – suppose we skidded?  Suppose I was on the wrong bus bound for the wrong airport?  I felt very far from home.

Of course, all was fine.  KAL business class lounge wasn’t that elegant, but I learned how to make up the spicy instant ramen that is v. popular (all the Koreans were wolfing it down), and felt much better once I’d had it and some coffee.

Flight home was fine – I wasn’t as agog at the bevy of beautiful flight attendants as before.  Read an imitation Mapp & Lucia, a Sister Frevisse, part of Castle Richmond by Trollope (I have most of him & most of Dickens on my iPad in case of emergency), watched part of the 100 foot journey (every plot turn seemed obvious) and slept some. 

INS has automatic passport reader machines – I thought they were fun—and the trip back from JFK was fine.