mine found in Gangwon- not a coal mine, either

UPDATED: I'm updating this on Aug 1, 2011, after a week of nightmarish rain and deadly floods in Seoul and Gangwondo.  Mudslides occurred in various mine fields and there are now mines that are not accounted for.  We don't know where they are.  Friends of mine wonder how the mines could have been tumbled in a multi-ton mess of mud and not have gone off.  I do too, but they were first to bring it up.  I suppose these are old and unstable mines.  Hit them with a hammer enough and something might happen on the twentieth try even if it didn't the previous 19 times.

From Marmot's Hole, The Herald and the Joongang.

Joongang: The areas where the search is focused on include air-defense entrenchments in Mount Umyeon, Gyeonggi and Gangwon, as well as some areas in Yangju, Gyeonggi. The border areas where North Korea’s wooden land mines are often discovered at a time of flooding were also included. 
Note that Umyeon is in Seoul, just south of the Han.  I lived near Sadang Station and learned the danso at the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Centre just below Umyeon mountain.

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ORIGINAL POST
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The Joongang reports that recent storms in North Korea have washed land mines -the exploding kind, if you really didn't know -into South Korea.  It appears that two mines drifted in the ocean and landed on South Korean islands, but the one in Gangwondo was carried by a river.

I have heard that mines shifted by storms, floods and mudslides are a problem in South Korea, too.  Without being able to recall the specifics, I do recall hearing that some mine fields in South Korea are impassible to South Koreans because the current locations of the mines is unknown.

Arirang is also reporting on the story.
Hmm.  the Joongang seems to describe the Gangwon mine as being in a river:

One mine was found on Gyodong Island, one on Bolum Island in Incheon, and the other in Suip Creek in Yanggu District in Gangwon.

. 
...but Arirang states that it was found at sea:
.

Two were discovered in waters off the west coast near Incheon and the other on the east coast off Gangwon Province.

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  I have discussed cross-border flooding before.

Surfers from Gangwon - and elsewhere - try to compete in Busan

The original post is here at my new blog.  Note the final few paragraphs where I discuss the typhoon's effect on Gangwondo and nationally.

Who is protected by Korea's libel laws?

The Joongang has an article about 'bad universities' and how they maintain their enrollment.

A reporter recently visited one of the schools, a four-year university in Jeju. The campus was eerily quiet, despite it being final exam time. “It’s a ghost town,” said a 72-year-old Jeju resident.

When the reporter finally caught up with some students, he couldn’t understand what they were saying because they were from China.

“It’s become so difficult to recruit students domestically, so the faculty and staff went to China and toured around its cities, pitching half-priced tuition for Chinese students,” said a university official.

Around 30 percent of the school’s 490 students are from China. The figure is 50 percent if you include students taking short-term Korean-language courses. Most of the Korean students pay 6.1 million won ($5,629) annually, an expensive sum by Korean standards. The Chinese pay half.

If a university's enrollment falls below a certain number, it loses out on government funding, so shipping in Chinese students to fill seats might work.  On the other hand, the Korean students are paying double!

The problem for me -well, the price is a problem, too - is that we can't be told what university this is. We also can't know the name of the university that here is "forced to cut costs to the bone. “The toilet in one building has no toilet paper, so students have to bring it with them,” said a 23-year-old student at a college in Gangwon. "


The university in Gangwon that I worked at had toilet paper back in 2009, so this article probably isn't about it.  Students, and their parents, should be able to learn these things, though.  It sounds like the Joongang attempted some good investigative journalism here, but the attempt is useless without the names.
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Sorta Related:  GI Korea wonders if Koreans are paying too much tuition.

storing electricity

As readers know, I have moved out of Gangwon Province and so post here much less frequently.  In addition, I was in Canada for a month, having recently returned - to Korea, not Gangwon, which I miss very much.

Consequently, I missed the whole "Corrupt Governor" story and now am commenting on an article that only slightly relates to Gangwon Province.

National Geographic has an article about ways to store electricity for utilities.  We are not talking about AA batteries, but ways to handle demand surges for large regions.  Storing electricity is important if new alternative energy production methods are to become mainstream.  Solar and Wind power can provide great quantities of electricity, but not consistently.

The article discusses using flywheels and compressed air as energy storage but also mentions pumping water uphill during off-peak periods.

Beacon's flywheel facility can dispense power for up to 15 minutes, but if a power plant wants to store energy for a longer period of time, it can do so by pumping water uphill. When the energy is needed later, the water flows back downhill, powering turbines that generate energy.

This so-called "pumped-storage hydroelectricity" is one of the most common forms of electricity storage now being used on the grid. But the DOE is looking into cheaper systems that rely on compressed air instead of water.

One thing I find interesting here is how this is not really that new.  As a scout, thirty-something years ago, at the electricity generating dam in downtown bracebridge, I was told how, during low demand periods, they reduced the amount of water flowing through the turbines and building up the 'head'.  I have to admit that the dam in Bracebridge could not have stored much water this way as stakeholders upstream would complain, but I do like the idea. Instead of having the water flow down to produce energy used to pump water uphill to later flow down again, just leave it up there.

I guess the pumping to a purpose-built reservoir would solve the complaints and environmental problems.  it is also the route Yangyang Gun in Gangwon Province took five or ten years ago.  Also, here (an excerpt although the rest is behind a paywall):

ANGYANG, South Korea, Sept. 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has completed its biggest pumped-storage hydroelectric power station after 10 years of construction, a state-run electricity company said Monday. The power station in Yangyang, 215 kilometers northeast of Seoul, was constructed at a cost of 932.4 billion won (US$972.7 million) and is capable of generating a maximum of 1,000 megawatts ofelectricity an hour, according to the Korea Midland Power Co., one of the subsidiaries of state-owned Korea Electric Power Corp.A dedication ceremony for the facility, the country's fifth pumped-storage …

Not entirely on-topic, but still interesting is a discussion of how much power we will need in the future.

snowboard competition cancelled in Yongpeong

An international snowboarding competition was canceled after boarders and coaches claimed the course was too dangerous.

Canadian team coach and former snowboard cross champion Drew Neilson said the course at Yongpyong resort was too steep at the top and very fast at the bottom, raising concerns about the athletes’ safety.
“The turns were very tight, on a very steep pitch. With the speed involved, if there was an accident, there would be nowhere for anyone to go,” he said.
“What we do is dangerous. It’s a dangerous sport,” Neilson said, and many athletes were already struggling with injuries following the recent X Games competition.
The snowboard cross, the fourth event in the FIS World Cup season, will be rescheduled at another venue, officials said. Meanwhile, the parallel slalom event will go on as planned Wednesday, Ma said.
Pyeongchang in eastern South Korea is mounting its third bid to host the Winter Olympics, and the cancellation comes just a week before an International Olympic Committee team is due in South Korea to inspect the city’s 2018 bid.
Neilson said snow conditions were fine and praised the local organizing committee in hosting the event, but blamed International Ski Federation officials for picking the wrong slope.

Oh, it wasn't just the Canadians complaining.

The fan-death story won't go away

Years ago, I found on wikipedia an article on Fan-death that quoted a professor at my university.  I interviewed him and found he didn't really say all those things he said but I think the audio-recording website has since disappeared.   Anyway, here are some articles I wrote about fan-death.

Today, XKCD put up a comic about common misconceptions and provided a link to wikipedia's list of common misconceptions. It includes:

"In South Korea, it is commonly believed that sleeping in a closed room with an electric fan running can be fatal in the summer. According to the Korean government, "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from suffocation, hypothermia, or fire from overheating." The Korea Consumer Protection Board issued a consumer safety alert recommending that electric fans be set on timers, direction changed and doors left open. Belief in fan death is common even among knowledgeable medical professionals in Korea. According to Dr. Yeon Dong-su, dean of Kwandong University's medical school, "If it is completely sealed, then in the current of an electric fan, the temperature can drop low enough to cause a person to die of hypothermia."^{[80][81][82][83]} Although an airconditioner transfers heat from the air and cools it, a fan moves air to increase the evaporation of sweat. Due to energy losses, a fan will slowly heat a room."

two of my favorite sports rolled into one

I enjoy polar bear dips and I enjoy ethically-questionable Korean practice of catching live aquatic animals by hand.  At the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival, I could have done both.
Chris in South Korea has the details.  I'm not sure if he merely watched or participated.  The photo of the kid in agony is hilarious - kids in pain often are, after all.

Stop the Seorak Cable Car!

Image from the Korea Times (which my computer is again recognizing as a malware site - visit at your own risk.)

Goseong Fishing Fleet kept in Harbour

Via ROK Drop, is this image and brief report on the results of tensions in the West Sea carrying over to the East Sea.

From Yonhap, this is a picture of a harbour in Goseong in which the boats are in lockdown.  Goseong is the Northernmost of harbours in South Korea.

Mine in Yangyang re-opening

The Joongang today had news of an iron Mine in Yangyang County, Gangwon province re-opening after being closed for 15 years.  When the mine closed, iron prices were at $18 per ton.  Now iron prices are over $100 a ton.

For me, there are two interesting points here.

The first is the volume of iron Korea uses annually.  The article tells us that another mine in Gangwondo produces 455,000 tons and that is 1 percent of Korea's total demand.  I have nothing to compare that to, but it seems a huge number.

The second point is described in the Chosun Ilbo.  their article seems to be describing the same mine - how many closed iron mines that will soon re-open can there be in Yangyang- but also goes into detail about rare earth deposits located there.

Due to a hike in the price of iron ore in recent months, the Korea Resources Corporation decided to redevelop the mine that had been shut down in 1995 and found deposits of lanthanum and cerium. Because the mine is in the mountains more than 10 km from residential areas, mining can go ahead. 

Dr. Sung Yoo-hyun of the corporation's research institute said the deposits found in the early stage seem to be of low quality, but there seems to be a large deposit of high-quality metals to be found when full-scale exploration of the huge mine gets underway." Iron ore and rare earth metals exist in areas where magma erupts to the surface, making it likely that the two coexist.

Gangwon's ambassador

I just received an email -at my defunct kwandongbrian account that I only checked by chance this morning- about Gangwon's new ambassador from Koreafornian Cooking.

The news comes from the Chosun Ilbo:

Actor So Ji-sub is to be named a goodwill ambassador for tourism for Gangwon Province on Friday.

In a recently published travel journal, So featured photos and essays he authored while visiting areas of the province, including Cheolwon, Hwacheon, Yanggu and Goseong. 

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Wow! Two posts here in one week after months with no activity.  At the same time, Surprisesaplenty has had no new content in ten days.

Eat in Sokcho and free Malaysia

I don't exactly plan to give up on this blog but it is easy to be distracted away - what with living hundreds of kilometres outside of Gangwondo now.

I still have 'Gangwon' as one of my Google reader alerts and occasionally I see an article that interests me - most of the articles are about soccer, which is a fun sport but I prefer to play than to watch or read about.  Anyway, I don't know why this one caught my attention; probably it was the international feel of reading about a Star Trek fan describe Sokcho for Free Malaysia Today.

In any case, Tiberius Kerk (Star Trek's captain was James Tiberius kirk) visited Sokcho and enjoyed Squid Sundae, although he was disappointed at first that it wasn't ice cream.
A few things bothered me about the article:

For a city filled with about 84,000 people, it was not surprising that the streets were not crawling with pedestrians. Sedate is the appropriate word for this city.

We were told that the Sea of Japan was nearby but we couldn’t identify it. The sun was bright and the sky was very clear when we arrived at the fish market.

The first sentence with 'filled', 'not' and 'not'.  My own writing is filled with phrases that do not make sense and so are not easy to read.  Dang, I can't imitate that writing- well, not deliberately.

I am not a VANKer so I don't mind the 'Sea of Japan' remark, but it is hard to travel anywhere without seeing the sea, not matter which name you use.

Clearly Mr kerk had fun in Sokcho and made me miss it a little.

Ticks in Gangwondo

Here is a PDF on tick numbers in Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces.  Mammals were trapped at various locations, including Cheolwon in Gangwon, and their ticks counted and identified.

It's relatively dry, and there are no real standout short quotes.  If you read scientific jargon or spend a lot of time outdoors, it is probably worth the read.

North Korean dam discharge

I'm almost not sure why I am writing this post. I have missed some other Gangwondo news so this seems a little out of the blue.

Anyway, in years past, I have blogged about trans-border water - rivers and the like- and discussed rivers that cross the DMZ.

Recently, North Korea announced they were going to increase water flow across the border, and in fact have done so.

From the article:

North Korean media said Sunday that as many as 143 millimeters of rain had fallen in a town near the border city of Kaesong while heavy rains had continued in many other regions for days.

Last October, the South demanded an apology from the North for the deadly flash flood, leading the communist neighbor to express regret and convey a message of condolences to the bereaved.

Green-camp in Gangwondo

I read a hard copy of the Korea Herald today and learned of a green camp in Yangyang this summer. It is the sort of thing I would love to be involved with, if I still lived in Yangyang and they needed an English Teacher. Anyway, the Koreaherald website is described as a suspected malware site, so I don't visit it. Here is a photo of the article, from July 2nd, 2010. Click to embiggen and read.

Hmm. I found a link that took me straight to the article. Is only the home page a malware-risk?... Or, am I now doomed?

I am not a war-monger, but...

I'm happy to have Lee Myeong Bak in power now and not, for example, Roh Mu-hyun.

From the Herald:

President Lee Myung-bak on Monday vowed to “immediately exercise (Seoul’s) right of self-defense” if North Korea attempts military provocation again as he announced several countermeasures against the North, which allegedly sank a South Korean warship in March.

“From now on, the Republic of Korea will not tolerate any provocative act by the North and will maintain the principle of proactive deterrence,” Lee said during a televised national address, which was followed by a joint press briefing by the ministers of unification, foreign affairs and defense.

“If our territorial waters, airspace or territory are militarily violated, we will immediately exercise our right of self-defense.”

Lee defined the Cheonan’s sinking as “a surprise North Korean torpedo attack,” saying that it “constitutes a military provocation against the ROK.”

I'll admit I am a bit of a chicken-hawk in this case. I don't want to be here if a battle starts, but I would like to see the end of the Korean War. If I were still in Gangneung, I might finally be happy to have our university buzzed by fighter jets during classes.

leduc, Alberta and Yangyang, Gangwondo form a partnership

It seems to be a business partnership or twinning. I wish I knew more about Leduc, which is pretty far north, near Edmonton.

The Edmonton Journal has the story and either it, or the Leduc region, have already gotten themselves into trouble with this statement (my bolding):

Yangyang, a mountainous region with coastline in the Sea of Japan and a famous salmon stream, is promoting green industries such as tourism and agriculture, forestry and fisheries. It is also a transportation hub, with an international airport and major highway links.

Koreans know this is the incorrect name for the sea to the East of Korea, properly known at the East Sea.

100km walk this Saturday

... and Sunday in Wonju.

The Korea Times has the details.

I thought it would change after I left.

Gangwon is apparently full of fatties.

From the Chosun Ilbo:

In the study of data from 9.88 million people who had checkups in 2008, Dong District in Ulsan topped the list with 43 percent of its residents overweight, followed by Yanggu in Gangwon Province with 42 percent.

Four other areas in the Gangwon Province recorded obesity rates of over 40 percent: Inje (3rd place), Yeongwol (5th), Yangyang (7th), and Cheolwon (9th).

Of the 230 administrative areas nationwide, Gangnam and Seocho districts in Seoul ranked the lowest with 28 percent.

I have never noticed any place in Korea having a third of the population obese. I think someone's definition of 'obese' is wrong - it could be mine.

To look for a silver lining, this may mean Gangwon residents are less dependent on pharmaceuticals (wow, I spelled that right on the first try). From the Chosun Ilbo (note the obesity rate and compare it to the above article - consistency, guys!)

Korea's use of slimming pills and appetite suppressants ranks near the top in the world despite an obesity rate of 3.5 percent, only a quarter of the OECD's average 14.6 percent.

Production and import of obesity drug Sibutramine rose 11 times from W4.4 billion in 2003 to W49 billion in 2008 (US$1=W1,140). The market for psychotropic appetite suppressants, which are categorized as narcotics by the International Narcotics Control Board, also grew four-fold.

It is a paradox that one of the skinniest countries in the world consumes the largest amount of diet drugs. In a survey of 1,000 Koreans aged 15 to 59 by Consumers Korea, 86 percent had gone or were on a diet in 2008, while 13 percent said they had resorted to diet pills.

So, are gangwon residents obese? Is the rate 3.5% or 35%?

KMLA is seeking a biology teacher

Korean Minjok Leadership Academy is a domestically famous high school, and is looking for a biology teacher. I am a science enthusiast and hobbyist but am uncertain if I would be able to teach and grade these classes. I feel this way because I have spent so long looking at very basic English essays and paragraphs; I don't think I could accurately judge the quality of a top high school lab report.

The job listing is at Dave's ESL Cafe and, because of my history with the school (I taught biology at their summer and winter camps for several years), I felt I should help in advertising the position.

Korean Minjok Leadership Academy (KMLA), a residential high school in South Korea, is seeking outstanding candidates for a full-time biology teacher. Located two hours outside of Seoul in the serene mountains of Gangwon Province, KMLA is a coed, independent secondary school for gifted students of Korean heritage with grades 10 through 12. KMLA was founded in 1996 to cultivate global leaders by training their academic mind and moral character. Each year, about half of our graduates attend top tier universities in Korea and the other half attends top tier universities and colleges in the U.S. and other countries. KMLA maintains an English-Only-Policy, which encourages all students to speak English on campus. Please refer to www.minjok.hs.kr for further details.

Qualifications
* Native or native-level English speaker
* Undergraduate degree in biology or related fields; M.S. or Ph. D. degree in biology preferred

Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include: (1) teaching AP Biology, and other biology classes at high school or college level; (2) supervising students to conduct lab experiments and write research papers; and (3) being an active member in the Science Department and school community.