Archive for the ‘ACYPL’ Category

We left Daejeon very early on Thursday morning for a long haul to Yeongju, which is in the northeastern portion of South Korea. The trip was a fairly long one given the hectic pace of our schedule thus far. Several of us took the opportunity to catch up on sleep and also to get to know each other better. Once we arrived at Yeongju city hall, we were greeted by the Mayor, Kim Joo Young.

The mayor was willing to have a lengthy dialogue about the history of the region, the current state of economic affairs and the goals for the city in the future. One thing which the Mayor pointed out to us was the abundant sunshine in the city. In fact, we had all noticed that the haze of the city had been replaced with a clear sky and lots of sun. As a result, Yeongju is working towards lots of green energy through the benefits of solar panels being installed in numerous places around the city. They also are looking towards wind as another source, although their primary influence appears to be solar at this time.

Mayor Kim was gracious enough to host us also for lunch at a local favorite restaurant of his. Our meal for that afternoon was a bowl of chicken stock with a chicken boiled inside flavored with ginseng. The chicken was then stuffed with rice. This meal was delicious, although it was a little more difficult to access the chicken through chopsticks. It was a whole chicken (about the size of a cornish hen) and we used chopsticks to open the chicken to reach the rice and eat the meat. This proved to be the most difficult chopsticks related task I had the entire time I was there, but I certainly enjoyed the meal and the hospitality of the Mayor.

From there, we traveled to MuSum, a traditional folk village which is still in operation. One of the very interesting things here is that the people who live in the village and give tours of the location are living in a combination of two worlds. The ancient world of Korea, which homes built on top of logs to provide a firm foundation and modern Korea, with Satelitte dishes in the middle of their homes bringing hi-definition television and Internet into the middle of a traditional village.

The villagers here live on an island of sorts, with water surrounding their home and the banks protected by sand which has been shipped in. The island is accessible only by a road (or boat, I guess). The road was not very friendly for our bus driver to try to navigate but most of the cars parked in the village which the villagers use were smaller and would be able to negotiate fairly easily. The living quarters were accessible by small doors and the living rooms were open air. Some of these homes were literally hundreds of years old.

From there, we went to the traditional village, where we had tea in a very formal setting overlooking the mountainsides and the stream below. This villa was out in the middle of nothing – no indication of technology anywhere. There were no antennas, no telephone poles. While there were lights outside, those were the limits of what you saw that indicated any technology was present at all. The courtyard of the villa was dirt and the paths to all of the guest rooms were also dirt. I was very thankful that there was no heavy rain this evening.

We would be sleeping in these guest houses for the evening. The accommodations were like nothing I’ve ever experienced. There was only a coffeepot sitting on a table which held some books on the floor. There was no other furniture in the main room. Off of the main room, I was lucky enough to have a kitchen with a refrigerator. Off of that room was a combination shower/toilet/sink. Inside the main room there were several blankets and large mats which were stored on top of a few boards which had been nailed to the wall and hung from the ceiling. I cheated and slept on top of four of these mats, which I folded up into more of a mattress. The room was surprisingly warm once I turned on the floor heating system. All of us who spent the night there slept better than we had the entire trip thus far. But the highlight of this experience was when I happened to look at my iPhone while we were being shown around upon arrival there. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – five bars of cell phone signal and a strong wi-fi signal. To make sure, I opened Safari (the Apple web browser) on my iPhone and went to www.newsok.com to see if it was indeed working Internet. Sure enough, it pulled up a story which had just been published. I showed it to my colleague from Minnesota and said “Dude. I got Wi-Fi.” This statement made our top ten list of phrases which caught us off guard during the trip. The next morning I shot a video of my experience there. Camerawork by Rep. Lindsey Holmes (D-Anchorage):

Villa (Large Quicktime – 428.6 MB)

One of the features of the ACYPL program is that each member of the delegation spends a day as the “team leader.” I was able to pick my day earlier in the week and quickly looked to the science and technology day as the day which I wanted to serve in this capacity. The team leader is responsible for introducing the delegation to the hosts, making toasts at lunches/dinners and ensuring that everyone gets a chance to participate fully.

We had a late morning, which was good to have in order to catch up on correspondence from back home and try to have a telephone call with people in the states while they are still up. We also had to pack our bags and check out of the Seoul hotel, the Somerset Palace, and move to Daejeon City for the night and then to Yanjgu for two nights. The hotel was kind enough to let us store bags there if we chose, so I took the opportunity to leave my large bag and planned to carry everything in my carry-on.

Our first visit was to Samsung’s Exhibition Hall. Samsung is one of the Korean chaebols, or conglomerates. Samsung has an annual economy on its own which is comparable to the country of Malaysia. While I was there, I shot a quick little video for Lauren and Alex:

Samsung QuickTime Video

The Samsung exhibit also featured the newest in Samsung’s technology. It would be a safe bet to say I could live in a tiny cramped space and be content if I had half of what they had on display. But we had very little time here, so the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight was a little disappointing – I would have enjoyed the entire movie on one of their hi-def screens.

We then took an hour and a half drive to Daejeon City. There, we started with a luncheon with some local government officials before moving to Daedeok Innopolis. This was absolutely an impressive outing. The leaders of Korea decided in the 1970′s to start a science based city to focus on research and development. While there we were able to tour the Electronics Telecommunication Research Institute (ETRI), which is a leader in tech development. While there we saw simply amazing items under development. We were asked not to photograph or record any of them because they are under research development for later commercialization, but they didn’t stop us from describing some of what we saw there, including:

• A broadband delivery system which streams at 3.6 Gigabytes per second
• A broadband delivery system which uses the human body’s bio-electrical system as the network
• Real time medical data delivery through a wristwatch style device
• Advanced communications for automotive travel to display road conditions ahead and behind the car through a network of on board cameras
• Home automation that makes today’s automation seem ancient
• Robots that recognize faces, obey commands and can assist the elderly/infirm

After ETRI, we moved to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), a university which is the home to thousands of Korea’s best students. After a discussion of academics and the unique nature of KAIST, we were given a tour, starting with an electronic car delivery system where a bus system at the University is powered through magnetic transfer of electricity from wires in the concrete to the bus, much like the bullet trains receive their power.

At the conclusion of our tour, we went to check into our hotel room at the Daedeok Guest House, which is part of the Daedeok Innopolis Welfare Center, headed by President Kim Moon-Young. Mr. Kim was a fantastic host and we really enjoyed getting to know him as he travelled with us around Daejeon/Daedeok. After checking into the hotel, we went for dinner at a fantastic Italian restaurant, hosted by the President of Daedeok Innopolis, Mr. Kang Gye Doo. He suggested the lamb chops, so as a good guest, I obliged. I’m glad I did.

We had a great discussion at dinner on the future of the Korean peninsula and the relationship between our two countries as it relates to North Korea. We also were able to work in a little about the great scientific things being done in Daejeon/Daedeok Innopolis before we retired to the hotel for the evening. It would be our last evening in the hotel before staying at a traditional Korean villa in Yeongju the next evening.

We went to the DMZ today. Although they do not regularly do tours on Sundays, they were kind enough to do so for us. I only have the standard definition video available right now. I’ll try to get the other one when I return.

Also, this video is very much in a raw format. It is nowhere near the quality that I had hoped to shoot. By the way, when you think of our soldiers overseas, please remember the men at the DMZ.

BTW, just in case you are curious, the video at the very end is from the movie “Dave.” It was playing in the “Sanctuary,” where the U.S. troops hang out for free time. The lead character was singing “Oklahoma!”, and I tried to capture what I could. Didn’t get much, as you can see.

DMZ QuickTime Video (18.5 MB)