메리추석요!

Merry Chuseok!

Chuseok is Korean Thanksgiving, which I've been enjoying over the last couple days. Koreans traditionally dress up in the Hanbok (see cute kid to left), eat with their families and pay respects to their ancestors. Being the dedicated Korean that I am, I decided to do a little touristing.

Wednesday I went to the traditional Hanok Village - well, as traditional as you can get with about a million Koreans and a gift shop. We saw lots of reconstructed Korean houses, a really skilled tightrope walker, many Koreans, and lots of reconstructed Korean houses.

Thursday was the Seoul tourist piece de resistance: 남산타워! (North Seoul Tower.)
This is a tower on top of the mountain in the middle of Seoul, which overlooks all of Seoul.

The story's simple: walk up large mountain staircase with many Koreans, wait an hour for an elevator, see all of Seoul, walk back down mountain staircase, see the sunset over Seoul, return home happy after Shabu Shabu. It was a fun day.

More photos after the jump.

"Is anybody out there?"

The first ten people who comment on this post will get postcards from Korea. (Email me your address if I don't know it.)

The View From My Window

My favourite blog, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, has a regular feature called "View From Your Window", which is exactly what it sounds like. My contribution -- actually the view from the 15th floor elevator well of my building -- was posted yesterday. The blog is worth checking out.

What Steve's Reading, Games edition

Games have recently fascinated me. Here's what I'm reading (or watching) about them:

Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre. Wired, 2009. Settlers of Catan is a fantastic board game - I've only played it a couple times, but I have friends absolutely devoted to the game.

Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom. NYT Magazine, 2010. An educational experiment building video games (playing and designing) into a middle/high school curriculum.

And finally, an insightful perspective on games as psychological tools, and how these may shape the future of the internet.

Feeling the city through the Seouls of my shoes

For Grandpa and Mom

As a thank you for taking me to my first Gilbert and Sullivan opera so many years ago:

Word of the Week

unrappit

Use in a sentence: If I get a present I just unrappit in a second.