Shameful to admit, the photos are from the factory that belongs to the company I work for. The ruins are from a failed project dating several years back. A lot of money was wasted on these equipment when the supplier went broke. Since then, nobody cared about it as the machines were abandoned on a corner of the factory site.

I went past the field of the sluggard,
past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;

thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.

I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw:

A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-

and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.

Proverbs 24:30-34 (NIV)

If you do not attend to certain corners of your mind, it will surely go rusty and will not work as intended in need.

I was in Nairobi, Kenya for six days, from April 6th to 11st, 2010. Because I was mostly occupied with the work schedule, I did not have much time to explore the city. I was able, however, to catch some glimpses of the life in Nairobi through the car window when moving from one place to another. My interaction with the people in the city was also limited to short exchange of greetings with people working at the hotel.

Due to lack of time to immerse myself into the local life, it was very difficult to gain insights from what short observations I had about the city. It was as if I could see but I were not able to understand.

The photo above is of some work going on at the gate of Nairobi National Museum. The workers were tearing the gate apart. You need to know a bit more about the city to understand why they are demolishing the gate that looks perfectly ok. Pure observation by itself, especially if you just look at this scene alone, will not teach you the reason behind the work.

I learned that the city is expanding the road all over the area with the help from China. So, the road expansion is the reason for taking down the gate.

My next question is why it is China that is helping Kenya expand the roads. What do they get from it? And where are the Chinese workers?

If I stayed here for several more weeks, and if I had more conversations with the local people, then I would have had better understanding of the situations and the context, which would have led to more effective observation.

Thus, in order to gain insights from observation, you have to supplement it with some background research.

This is interior of a BMW owned by an active CEO of a small but profitable company. (FYI, this is not my car.)

With multiple microphones and empty cups, this car is more like his second office where significant amount of business conversation would take place.

While this particular car maker has “The Ultimate Driving Machine” as its slogan, there are some drivers still waiting for a car design that would serve as a perfect second office.

Show the face forward.

중국 출장 중에 들른 阿英煲 (A Ying Bao)라는 레스토랑 체인점에서.

This entry is to test images with portrait mode.

The image is taken at Getty Center, Feb 7, 2010.

I visited a kindergarten classroom one day in February to find this poster attached to the wall. The messages are written by the graduating class of the kindergarten for the incoming students. (In Korea, school year begins in March.)

There are misspellings everywhere but what I see is the beautiful shape of the letters carefully written by the small hands. Also notice their profuse use of drawings.

Such an open display of one’s love for a brand.

But perhaps it is rather a disservice to the brand. If you were a local PR manager for Burberry, what action would you take?

Photo taken at Everland, March 1, 2010.

Roof can be designed with a style, too.

If form follows function, what then is the function of this specific design found in the roof of many traditional Korean architecture?

Photo taken at a temple in Mooreung Valley Park (무릉계곡 내 삼화사) on October 5, 2009.

The irregular gaps between the clay pieces and the seemingly misaligned lines are often observed in Korean architecture. Some say such imperfection is part of what constitutes Korean sense of aesthetics.

This issue makes me keep thinking. Did we have to embrace imperfection because we couldn’t afford perfection in the old days? Or, did we choose to pursuit imperfection because we somehow came to an understanding that perfection was unnatural and, thus, a beauty of a lesser kind?

Photo taken at a temple in Mooreung Valley Park (무릉계곡 내 삼화사) on October 5, 2009.

A scene from my neighborhood.

The notice reads “Do not park your bike here. If found, it will be removed at will.”

An ironic situation.

We had to entertain a business guest for lunch. We went to Wall-Mi-Do (월미도) seaside park of Incheon port and went into one of the many seafood restaurants lined up along the street.

Seafood restaurants in Korea, especially the ones that serve raw fish (“회”), are known for the wide assortment of side dishes. Ironically, these side dishes are called in Japanese name (쯔끼다시, “つき出し“). I wonder why we do not have Korean name for these side dishes.

Not all seafood restaurants serve side dishes to this extreme.