Cheese and Asia

A Korean made Brie. I had no knife so I used Chopsticks

Since I first started coming to Asia years ago I have always found that cheese is dealt with interestingly here. As many people know China and Mongolia have had fermented milk from early on. Nowadays  milk and yogurts are consumed on mass, however the cheese market is still small and almost exclusively premium. However, most people in Asia I meet seem to really enjoy cheese and this is no secret, as far as I can tell, to the local food industry. One Chinese friend to whom I introduced Goat cheese to in Australia commented that he wished to eat nothing else for the rest of his existence.

Packaging from one of the most common milk suppliers here. I think it is rather nice and that the name Maeil almost communicates Milk. Maeil or 매일 actually means everyday in Korean

In Asia one can buy foreign cheeses at a relatively high price but they are almost never used in foods in restaurants. Various dishes in China and Korea are starting to have cheese options but the cheese used is almost exclusively low fidelity cheddar which I think is made of plastic.

This is an amazing dish which I will comment more on later. What is important at this point is that those rice cakes are full of the previously mentioned cheddar.

A few years ago I thought it would be interesting to start an Asian cheese company which could provide for the local need and introduce more variety. Here in Korea there is a company (Sangha, a brand of Maeil) doing this and selling reasonable Camembert and Brie, still overpriced, but much less than the imported options. I tend to still buy French or Australian products as the flavour is superior but it is interesting to see the effort. This company has also released a Camembert spread which comes in a bottle, sadly it is slightly aerated.

Camembert in a Bottle. I think we should explore the possibility of making this really nice, it seems like a good idea.

In any case, I have a few contacts in this area but should get more investment before tackling Asian cheese. Any ideas?

11-11 11:11:11

From Da Zai

Me in Da Zai, we were in a mountainous hotel in room 11

11 is my favourite number which makes November 11th my favourite day. I know this conflicts with most of the world's thoughts on this day so I try not to bother people with my strange habits.

Pepero Box

Also, I should add, 11-11 is Pepero Day in Korea and Singles Day in China which are both related to love and things, a bit like valentines day.

Improving Bathrooms

Korean and Chinese and other bathrooms are really neat because they use a much more open architecture and contribute to a more designable experience for the user. I think there are a few important parts to this flexibility that make it really fun:

1. Water Room - everything is designed to get wet. It is easier and more fun. I think it could be a good design principal.
2. Feature full Floor - many bathrooms have wash racks mounted into the floor for people to do laundry. I think this could be extended to a few other features.
3. Continuous Experience - this is a bit less certain but it just seems that when I use bathrooms in Korea or China, whatever I am doing it feels that the tools are really built into the environment. I am not sure what I mean but I think it is a good feeling and I think it is something that could add to the experience of western bathrooms. Perhaps it is the really modular multi function nature of every aspect of this kind of bathroom. Each fixture seems to have distinct uses but also ends up emerging as a solution to many problems, just by the nature of the simple and elegant environment. 
4. Isolation from Dirt and enforcing Cleanliness - In these settings it is common for people to use small towels which is really nice for various reasons, and also use slip on shoes when they are in the bathroom. This is interesting because it combines to make a really fresh cleaning experience every time. That is to say; I think I feel a lot more clean after showering like this because you can concentrate on cleaning and you are sort of forced into cleaning. A small towel also works better to retain quality in your skin. 

That is all I can think of at the moment. I am trying to put together some ideas to make a bathroom design that ties a few ideas on washing together to create something that is a bit more efficient and a better experience.

Comments or stories about interesting washing experiences would be great. Especially if you know a lot about Japanese washing. 

On Real Semantic Web and Language

I am in China :-) and I am really happy to be back here. At the moment I am in Hangzhou which is where I used to live.

The other day I posted about language and how natural language systems would be gould for Semantic Web and then today I cam upon a Google tech talk that details the matter quite well.



Have a look if you have some spair time. I am about 20 minuts in so far and though it is not completely thrilling the speaker has made some interesting points.

Sorry about spelling I am using an internet cafe in which pages are not loading perfectly and spell checkers are not working.

China is so much fun.

Grey For China

In mourning for the global destruction of the past few weeks.

This is a photo near the affected area from my trip there last year.

Brain Damage

Earlier today I had a grade one concussion a few minutes after hitting my head on the floor during a kung fu drill. As the concussion set in I realised I did not know where I was or what I was doing and a few other things like that. Luckily the person I was doing drills with was a neurologist and he quickly analysed the situation and started to explain what had happened. As the evening went on I think I remembered most things that happened before hand but I do not really remember some of the time from initially realising i was concussed and then sitting down and talking with this guy about it. I am not sure if that is a serious problem though. 

So my parents are supposed to wake me up 4 times to check if I have not fallen into a comma and I am not supposed to not do anything to hurt my brain. We will see. If I am not alive tomorrow I am sorry to all of you who I owe money and the people who's stuffed creatures are not yet in the mail. 

In other news, there were some really interesting articles on China in a Boing Boing post I read today. Check out the links in this post. 

Planning to Travel Around the World and Using the Google Visualisation API

So I am going to France this summer then I thought it would be nice to go overland to Korea and then to China before coming home. Here I have started to plan my movements but I have not yet checked spelling. I have also used the google data API to render this in an interactive timeline. I think it is still linked to the online data I am editing so it may change without notice.

It was not hard to use but it did take a little while to get it to work. I wish I could pipe in other data sets or something. Perhaps I can... I will see what I can do. 

Update: The timeline has stopped working for anyone now so I am going to not bother fixing it until I know some more details about my trip. The API is good but seems to be crufty and have some serious reliability issues at the moment.