Coffee cafe Korean culture

It is an amazing fact that there are possible 1 million coffee shops, cafe, stands, kiosk, club in Korea. My attempt to count them today justifies that number. Just north of Exit 9 across to road OFF the Hongdae area towards Worldcup-ro/Jandari area, I thought of just taking a walk when it wasn't too hot.

Within minutes of walking, there is a CU convenience store. Then up appears a Kona Beans Coffee Shop. http://www.konabeans.co.kr This is swanky upscale looking coffee shop. Beautiful interior and bright lighting, thoughtful arrangements of the wooden chairs and seats.

Walking into the street behind the main facing one, there appears small "sole proprietorship" owned cafes. But they are as immaculate and beautifully decorated as these big chained shops. Nice wooden settings, well arranged seating, illuminated lighting, complimentary wifi. Prices are similar from 2000 Won to 5000 Won. There's no policy of "time's up" or "you shouldn't linger here too long". They love you to be seating there all there even with just one cup of coffee.

Looking at the smaller establishments, it seems some are subtly more quiet, without patrons. My mind thought of finance. Is it possible to survive and make decent profit, what with (likely) high rental cost? Comparing similar setting in Malaysia, or Thailand, a little coffee space would have cost thousands. What with the designer boutique look of even the smallest joint?

Here are some photos (using Xperia L since I didn't bring my camera out today) of the coffee culture in Korea. It is everywhere. Every street corner there is one.

And a rhetorical quiz: how many coffee cups should a cafe sell to break-even per day?

PlayCafe Sketchbook - creative name, art people will love to hangout here

Inside and making use of the triangular space.
No space is wasted. Lighting, chairs, minimalist flooring, and always clear glass.

Small kiosk built on the side of a building.

This cafe has ample of car-park space.
Big glass, bright lights, cosy seating.
Books.

Indoor and outdoor, still bright lights, glass.
There was only 1 customer inside.

The customer was seating at a corner.
Likely engrossed in the free wifi.
Clean furniture. And clean cafe counter. So many things, yet so tidy.

Another outdoor seating coffee cafe. There is surely 1 million coffee cafes in Korea.

Learn Hangeul from crazy little things

Today is Hangeul Day. To a Korean eye, hangeul scripts are as natural as eating rice.

Your WiFi usually is secured with some AES encryption and/or TKIP? These are 128 bits encryption and would take 50-100 years to break using brute force attack. So imagine, now we need to learn some basics of Korean to be able to un-encrypt the Korean scripts to able to read signs and logos and coffee shop menus! So it's going to be fun when you think of it this way.

Here are some pictures of daily Korean life, crazy little things (that people usually disregard or discard):

Let's decipher this encrypted code.

1) First there are two words. First word is 2 blocks.  라
2) Next word consists of 3 blocks, left and right, and then 1 underneath. 면
3) First word: first letter is (almost) "l" sound and the next is "a" sound.
4) Next word: first letter is "m" sound, next to it is something "yeo" sounding. Remember when there are two lines, the sound will start with "y" added in the front? The bottom part is "n" sound.
5) Put them together, "la" "m-yeo-n". You get "ramyeon". Apparently the "l" letter will sound more "r" when it is the first consonant, but will sound very "l" when it is somewhere in between or ending of a word. Such as "hangeul" 한글

Tomorrow is Hangeul Day

Hangeul Day is a public holiday in Korea. It is the day to celebrate the creation of the super-unlocking codes of the Korean hieroglyphic system.

To explain to the lay person: Imagine ancient Egyptian wall paintings with dozens of similarly drawn symbols of animals, vegetables, cats, and finally there is a true meaning  to decipher. We get Indiana Jones or someone from the Mummy movie to decode it.

What if these codes are already unlocked? All you have to do to understand is to piece the puzzles together. The make it simple, usually the blocks of code are now arranged either 2 pieces per word or 3 pieces.

Another analogy or storyline is this. During the ancient times, the actual scripts used by the Middle Kingdom (zhong guo) and lands around the region is called hanja, or hua wen. It is essentially mini drawings of mountain (山 - doesn't it look like a mountain?), fish, people, objects, three-drops-of-water, etc. The ruler from the Joseon region thought of simplifying these for the commoner. In ancient times, most people are serfs or farmers, there's not much chance of education. So he cleverly devised a unique simplified system, that can be adapted and learned by common people in zero time. Hence, the creation of Hangeul.

Normal traditional hanja (chinese scripts) will take at least 5 years to master 20 000 words to be sufficiently proficient in the language, reading, writing, and dissemination of knowledge. Since each "mini drawing" is almost unique to each other, essentially a lay person would have to master 20 000 different paintings. 20 000 divide by 5 years, then 365 days, it means on average of mastering just 10 words a day, you need 5 years to master all of them.

So back to Hangeul, the scripts are now in blocks of 2 or 3. It's no more painting though it still does looks like that at some point. But essentially it is a soundless (no phonetics) system, flattened (instead of skeuomorph). 19 consonants and 10 vowels are building blocks.

To put it into practise, after deciphering the alphabets (minus the w sounding ones) mostly I can now read very slowly sentences, signboards, menus, or Kakao messages.

My T-Money card with Hangeul

Sunshin IU wanted to give her teacher red bean fish snacks (bunggeoppang...

Scene from IU's TV drama. Featuring the bungeoppang. Fish shaped red bean paste snack.

In my hometown Muar (Mapo), we have something similar too.

Hongdae Treasure Hunt this Sat 12th Oct

After not sleeping so early last night due to a very strong Khawah "rich mocha chocolate" coffee, my brain was in a storm, and when it settled I had to finally piece the project together. It was quite positive, I was able to put them in words plus the background setup.

After putting the finishing lines, it seems I had slightly forgotten my other schedule on Saturday, my Korea Level 0 class at Kongbubang. Finally checking the exact time, it is still fine since the class starts at 4pm. The treasure hunt should have been completed by 2:30pm.

Date: 12th Oct Saturday
Time: 1pm to 2:30pm
Meeting spot: Exit 9 of Hongik University Station, but walk straight for 10-15 metres away from the crowded entrance (KFC side), and cross to the Olleh shop.

Things to bring: 2 USED coffee cups; e.g. the ones from the convenience stores like "Khawah, French Cafe, Baristar".
Bring 1000 Won for materials, prize, misc.
Bring smartphone/camera. Perhaps pen/paper but since people use their phones to write, I guess it might be redundant.
Some goals: make friends since we'd be placed into teams. Team dynamics is a good space to show communications skills, leadership, orientation, getting to know people.
Purpose and Theme: will be revealed(!)

Winner: gets special mystery prize
Others: too will get some consolation
And everybody: will win new friends!

Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/555068004558631/
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1421223258096716/

BONUS: After the event, since it's Hongdae area, the participants can group to go for food, barbeque Korean style (galbi-jib), have a coffee in the 1024 cafes in the whole area, or plan for some night life, drinking, jamming, appreciate some street art, take photos. Talk. Tons to do with ample of bonus time!

EXTRA From past experience:
The previous Treasure Hunt (Scavenger Hunt) some of the shortcomings was it was packed with finding many stuff and hardly getting to know the people, plus the time used was rather long. The list of items was comprehensive to start with, but then it became a battle to finish it (cos the winning team got some free meal). But with the Sword of Damocles task, our team didn't really interact but just going to find objects and taking photos of it. One guy even had a super awesome pro camera. Heavy stuff. And he was adamant to win.

BUT, it was all ended with a vague way of calculating the winner, and seems the whole effort wasn't reciprocally fun. My teammates were great people. But we didn't have much time to mingle. There was a dinner afterwards to reward the winning team; it was a bit too crowded to make conversations. And everyone's energy level was disappearing.

ANYWAY: let's have fun and make new friends for this event

Playing Risk 2210AD Boardgame Changcheong dong

We had a fun little time playing board game, RISK 2210 A.D. in this world of fast internet, Xbox One, Android and IOS games, going back in time to play "traditional" yet complex games is a fun journey of real life interaction. Through the game, we battled some global warming temperatures by adjusting window and airconditioning, fought flu virus, using traditional ointment, enjoyed grapes, talked about EPL, ordered "chinese" take-away that does delivery by motorcycle right to your doorstep and will collect the dishes the next day.

Looks like from a game I used to play.
"Ancient Art Of War" by Broderbund.
(aka. Sun Tzu's L'art de la Guerre).
Has any of you played or heard this game before?

Very colourful board and pieces.
Enjoying the ultra-long introduction and rules.
Was so eager to start some battle!

Black is the new black.
Jajangmyeon.
Chinese-style black bean noodles.
Onions, meat(pork/beef), green peas and lots of black bean sauce.
Always fashionably tasty.

The winner gets the box of kimchi I brought over.

Welcome to KoppiJuseyo - Coffee Please Korean Style

Now today is the "official opening day" of the blog.

Welcome and 안녕.
Feel free to write any comments, suggestions, questions.
Even send some requests.

Using Canon SX40 and my signature "Happy Dog" postcard.
At Coffee Me Up.