Winter Sonata

No la, this is not about white snow covering the land in Okpo, Korea. There was snow for a few days last week and that was about it. It is an interesting experience for me to work first time in a cold climate country.

The considerations are different compare to when you are travelling to cold countries for 1-2 weeks holiday. For instance, heating, who thinks about heating when you are checking into a hotel during winter? It is taken for granted. But if you are staying in an apartment alone, you then think about the timing to heat up a room or a whole apartment etc. Same goes to laundry, when holiday all you need to do is make sure you ahve anough clothes to cover the whole trip and bring everything back home for cleaning. Working here you need to think about timing to clean and dry the clothes, whether if you even neeed to put the cloths in a dryer (they actually shrink!) And the fxxking laundry area is not heated is freezing cold when you try to hang your laundry.


Your boiling hot tea gets cold within 5 minutes you put on the table if the room is not sufficiently heated. And if you go out to have dinner in restaurant, which is normally heated, you will have to take off the layers of jacket on your body before sitting down to order you meal, and then put them all on again before going out to the freezing cold.

So far coldest in Okpo is -4C, without wind chill I am OK with one round nect T-shirt with my workclothes and then a jacket on top of it. Jeans have been sufficient so far to cover my legs, but notice that it becomes insufficient when windchill effects comes in. Not sure what alternative I have for that, long johns? hate that.

btw the picture is Seoul 2 days ago during their presidential election (it was -11C!), and Korea have their first lady president.