100 Things I Love About Korea: #68: Kakao Talk

If you have a smart phone, you can use one of the coolest new programs out there: Kakao Talk.  This is a Korean program, but it is available in English and Japanese.  Kakao now has some 10,000,000 users in 216 countries - so basically everywhere. 

I'm not a techie, but this is a cool app.  Here's what I like.

1. You can create a group chat, where everyone is chatting in the same window and can see everyone's comments.  I use this with the pastoral staff to set meetings and to solve issues that involve multiple people.

2. It recommends friends to you.  You don't have to go hunting and requesting friends.  As soon as someone in your phone contact list becomes a Kakao user, the system invites you to add them as your Kakao friend.  This is hugely convenient.

3. It's free - almost.  You have to pay for data transmission if you're not in a wifi zone.

4. There's no character limit.  Your messages can be as long as you want.

5. Virtually every smart phone user in Korea is on it.  That greatly reduces texting fees.

You can also share photos, videos, files, and links, but I don't really do all that stuff.  Like I said, I'm not a techie.  I use it for simple communication - kind of a hand-held modification of email, texting, and chatrooms.  You can download it for free at the istore or android market.

This is a repost from May 3, 2011.

100 Things I Love About Korea # 28: Women Divers

Korea is a peninsula surrounded by countless islands.  People here "farm" both land and sea.  Korea's HaeYeon or "Sea Women" are beautiful and poignant examples of adaptation, strength, and entrepreneurism.
Diving without oxygen to up to 20 meters (70 feet) deep, these ladies pull up shell fish, seaweed, and all sorts of other food items.  I've done some free diving, and 30 feet is about my limit.  At 30 feet, my ears are pounding, and my lungs are burning.  Going down is fun, but coming up, it feels like the surface is never going to arrive.  I have all kinds of respect for these ladies.
Also, anyone who works into their 70s or 80s deserves props.  I'm just saying, I hope I can still walk when I'm 70, much less dive down as many feet as years I've lived!

Psalm 1 - Sons of Korah

My friend Sarah Bean just introduced me to a really cool band called Sons of Korah.  They're 6 guys from Australia who play psalms - as in from the book of Psalms - in the Bible.  They put these prayer psalms to contemporary music in a variety of musical styles.
We're going to use this rendition of Psalm 1 in our worship service this week.


I also really like Psalm 100.

Korea Tip 98: Baths and Pots in Icheon

This week, we did a little alternative vacationing. I worked Tuesday (instead of taking the red-letter Lunar New Year holiday). Then, on Wednesday, I took half a day off, and we all headed out to Icheon for a little overnight tourism. Our friends Adam and Elisa introduced us to this little gem, and we followed the same pattern this time.

We arrived in the afternoon, and after securing nice little two rooms in a "Love Motel," (which just means a walk in motel), we enjoyed a nice supper of galbi and an evening at Spa Plus, one of the best bath houses in Korea. it also has a water park attached, but we've always been content with the bath house part. This time, for all of us, our favorite part was sitting in the hot tubs outside while breathing in the cool winter air. I also enjoyed the steam bath. The steam got so thick that I couldn't see the other side of the room.

In the morning, we had a leisurely breakfast at Paris Baguette Cafe, and we taxied over to the Icheon Pottery Village. This is one of the coolest places in Korea, in my humble opinion. There is shop after shop after shop with all sorts of locally made pottery. We really, really enjoyed ourselves.

Sarah and Mom both had birthday cash to spend. Sarah got a nice, round white vase with muted leaves. Mom got a blue/green pot for a house plant. We saw lots of stuff we loved but couldn't (or didn't want to) afford. We also got some cute little gifts for other folks.

Icheon is about 2 hours away by bus. If you wanted to go on a day trip, it would be a very full day trip (maybe not so bad if you don't have kids). If you spend the night, it turns out to be pretty relaxing (except that I was always worried that one of us would trip and knock over a table full of thousands of dollars worth of pottery!). All in all, it was a great little trip.