Archive for April, 2008
The article on Sinchon was first created on March 17 and I’ve have been optimizing it for SEO for the past 2-3 weeks.
The parent article was picked up by Yahoo earlier on (currently ranking #3 for ’sinchon’, there), but didn’t show on Google’s SERP until this past week. It’s flipped a few times between #9 to #20 on a search for ’sinchon’, but it seems to be holding around #9. I suppose that’s not a bad opening for rank.
‘Sinchon restaurants’ and ‘restaurants in Sinchon’ rank on Google at #3 and #2, respectively. Actually, Galbijim Sinchon articles occupy 5 of the top 6 search results for ‘restaurants in Sinchon’, so that says something about the value of content saturation.
‘Bars in Sinchon’ and ‘Sinchon bars’ is ranking #1.
I’ll continue to optimize ‘Sinchon’ over the next month or so. Good practice before moving into article optimization for other areas, as well as the financially vital optimization needed for MyESLJob’s blog that is coming soon.
Babalu is one of the longest running bars in Daegu that attracts a steady following from local expats. And that’s saying something, considering its distant location from the hustle and bustle from Rodeo Street nightlife. The draw that keeps them going is the latin music and salsa dancing that make up the Babalu experience. A fantastic cross-section of Koreans, english teachers, and US army personnel from the Camps, create an exciting synergy of movement that kind easily be found in Korea, let alone Daegu. And don’t be shy if you don’t how to dance, as the owners regularly hold salsa classes from M-F between 7-8pm.
Babalu is certainly not the one and only salsa club in Daegu, in fact there is quite a lively salsa scene in this city. Look for future blog posts here to peel the skin off the salsa onion of Daegu and leave a trail of breadcrumbs on where you can find more of this nightlife.
Although she has been more willing to entertain it, Obama doesn’t want her as a running mate. I don’t blame him, as it would rail against his campaign theme of a new change against same old politics. But with Indiana and North Carolina being as tight as they are, plus the Wright issue is not going away, plus 28% of Hillary supporters swinging to McCain if Barack is the Dem nominee, I think all of this is obviously going to boil down to her having to be on the ticket. For the good of the party, but also to ensure that it’ll be a Democratic White House. And I think the healing process of them coming together will play out a lot better than some give credit. Their platforms and positions on the issues are almost identical. The healing will be as passionate as make-up sex. You can just about close your eyes and imagine Bill and his goofy grin, guffawing away onstage as he drapes an arm around the Democrat’s new prodigal son, as if he had endorsed him way back when Teddy did.
So, after the healing begins and the media becomes consumed with the new Obama-Hillary love affair ticket, look for blacks, hispanics, women, white collar males, and independents, all break for the Democrats in November. Who knows, maybe even Texas will become a blue state.
Galbijim’s Facebook Group is now over 2100+ members, making it one of the most busy groups dedicated to foreigners in Korea. But a Facebook Group becomes useless after reaching 1200 members. You lose the ability to mass-email members or mass-invite them to Events. Unless you are willing to pony up a large amount of advertiser fees to Facebook. So we just have a Facebook Group that solely is for branding. It’s not a terrible thing, but frustrating that we can’t do much more than that, as we watch it graduate into its next 1000th member after the next.
Edit: I’ve read that we can transfer a Group to a Facebook Page, which has more promo capabilities. Not sure on how to do this, if it’s indeed possible.
Someone who either works at or frequents that cozy Daegu cafe loves to bring along their camera to document their dining experience. Cafe 5 is located on the 2nd floor of a building that overlooks the south entrance to Kyungpook National University Hospital, in eastern Samdeok. A little out of the way from the noise of downtown, but based on Tedy95’s blog, the italian food and wine that they serve may make some patrons lose themselves long enough to forget about location.
While I’m spending most of my available wiki time on Sinchon, these days, I might as well start the Mexican series off with the famed Choi’s Tacos, in the local area.
Choi’s Tacos (초이스 타코) first appeared on the scene in the spring of 2005 and word-of-mouth has sprung like wildfire, ever since. Not just among expats, but moreso among Koreans. In fact, at any given moment, if you were to walk past Choi’s, you’d see that all seats in his small little place are almost always full of Koreans. That’s obviously the difference here. If you open up anything that plays well to foreign tastes, you better pray to god that Koreans will embrace it, otherwise you are dead in the water. In this case, Choi’s opened up in a vital location where pretty much anything would sell to at least somebody. Even Snot-Covered-Ass-On-A-Stick might even get people walking up to that location. Sinchon street locations seem to sometimes make the damndest of successes, like Mr.Wow and its huge line-ups, for instance. But the great location should not discount what great food is there. He’s likely paying a fair price for that spot and in an area notorious for high turnover and he has been there for 3 years. And that kind of recipe for long-term success can only come in the form of great food and the word-of-mouth that stems from it.
Choi’s Tacos circa 2006. From Yahoo 거기 profile.
Present day:
As an aside, I must say that I absolutely love Choi’s logo and branding. Props for understanding the importance of investing in that, particularly the patience to evolve over time.
This news is a few weeks stale by now, but I like mulling over the ever-evolving visa process for teaching english in Korea. It’s evolved so much of late that I haven’t been bothered to update the relevant ESL pages on the wiki. Yeah, I’ll get around to it. If I can handle the redundancy of writing restaurant articles for places that will likely change over in a year, then I should be able to update evolving E2 content.
Anyways, looks like after all the belt-tightening in the aftermath of 변태-gate, and the ensuing backlash from employers complaining about teacherless classrooms, the government is making caveat after caveat to make the policies more realistic. The big beef seems to be about finding teachers to come teach in rural schools. So one idea that is being floated is to allow teachers who possess 2-year diplomas to be eligible for an E2. I don’t see why not, given that the media concern is obviously more about whether we have aids or not (see: required medical and blood tests) and if we are child molestors (see: criminal record checks), rather than anything to do with actually teaching, per se.
I’ve been out of the recruitment racket for a few years, but when I was recruiting and staring at resumes all day, I seldom would see many emails from people saying ‘I only have a 2 year diploma, is there any chance..blah-blah, etc…?’ I don’t see the relaxation of this signalling any opening of the floodgates of available teachers.
But regardless, looks like there is at least one government-approved effort to allow for 2-year diploma holders to come teach for 6 months, or even if you are diploma-less, but have finished 2 years out of a 4 year degree.
Watch for more of my half-assed commentary on Korea’s half-assed efforts to regulate/de-regulate its half-assed visa system.
Although we’ve documented all known Mexican places in Korea, on the wiki, the wiki has some restrictions due to the rules we’ve placed on it to try and offer a neutral POV. So I’ve decided to make a Best of Korea series and kick it off with Mexican food. There are a number of places that haven’t been to, nor have sampled a large cross-section of their menus, so its not going to be ironclad testimonies, moreso than profiling the experiences others have had and offering links and images. When I come back to Korea again, it’d be nice to take a week and do a cross-country tour of these places, maybe with supplementary video, and we can offer critiques and ratings based on best marg, best nachos, best burrito, best ambience, etc…But for now, I’ll put all of these in blog review format, to supplement their wiki profiles.
For the first time in almost 5 years, I’m making the long hop across the pond. We are leaving this Friday and arriving in Vancouver 10 hrs later. Then taking a bus through BC and spending a day in Banff, before the final leg to Calgary. Then after a week, we are flying to Newf to spend 2 weeks with Bird and Dude, before flying back to Calgary, to begin work. We’ve loaded up on Xanax and gearing up for the turbulence of air travel and reverse culture shock.
Edit: For anyone reading who may care enough to wonder, the blog and my Galbijim contributions will continue while I’m in Canada.
There are 4 sushi buffet places in Sinchon that we have profiles or are writing profiles for, but the first done is a place called 다초밥부페. Lunch is 10,000 won and dinner is 12,000. There’s also a 3,000won fine, if you have any leftovers on your plate, so ‘take what you can eat and eat what you take’.
