Tigers and Cranes

Onigiri, or those triangular shaped balls of rice is pretty ubiquitous in both Korea and Japan. Simple to make, easy to carry, and eat a few of them, and you’re pretty much set for lunch.

You can’t avoid them, especially in Japan, as they are sold in all the convenience stores and most markets. They, of course, come in different flavors, from the all-time classic umeboshi, the ones with salted, sour plum in the middle, to bonito fish flakes, sea weed, etc.

The ubiquitous “conbini onigiri”

Many people just make em at home, as I tried, but I just ended up making a mess everywhere. I might need more practice.

For those parents who want their little kid to have a special onigiri at school, here’s a “soccer-nori” packaging, in which all you have to do is apply carefully these sea laver on to a really round ball of rice.

wish I had some as a kid.

I came across this website called “Etsy”. Basically, it’s like Ebay, except, I suppose, it’s a place where one sells and buys stuff that is hand made. I wish I would have thought of it.

Now I knew a guy who was so talented, or had a lot of free time on his hands, that he made his own wallet… out of duct tape. Why on earth would you be carrying a wallet made of duct tape, I dunno, but I did appreciate the effort and the ingenuity that went into making such a product.

Which also reminds me of a story told by my old co worker, who said to never carry one of those velcro surfer wallets.

“Why not?” I asked. I have a beat up leather one, but I was still curious.
“Well, let’s say that you were on a date, and you pulled out your wallet. And what is the sound that the velcro wallet make when you open it?” He replied.
“Hm. The velcro sound?”
“Yeah, and it sounds like this to your date: ‘CHEAAAAAAAAAP’” Ha ha ha! he did the perfect velcro opening sound.

Well, you just had to be there.

Anyway, back to Etsy. I found this item for sale, and it’s relevant to this website, since it’s a “Ramen wallet.”

Pretty cool, huh? And the maker had the good taste to use the shrimp flavor packaging (no visible or discernible shrimp chunks, those lying Top Ramen jerks) though He/She claims that it can be made with bunch of other flavors too. Including “Oriental Flavor.” Hm? Where’s the Occidental flavor?

Tres Chic, regardless.

Go ahead and bid on it, make the wallet-smith a little richer by bidding on the item!

One place I really wanted to check out in Tokyo is a place called “Ooedo Onsen Monogatari” [大江戸温泉物語](Oedo Hotsprings Story) in Odaiba district. From what I gathered on the web, it looks like my type of place, a literal onsen theme park, with hot springs and shops and restaurants and such.

I’ve always liked hot springs, but mostly they were attached to a hotel or a ryokan, and while it was always relaxing, I really wanted to experience a large, mega onsens. The closest I came to one was in a small town called Mino-o in Hyogo Prefecture, and ostensibly one can hang out with monkeys while bathing. The place I visited had no monkeys, and it was kind of an old place that was pretty difficult to get to, on a mountain. The place, I believe, is called “Mino-o Spa Land”, and the inside of the bathing facility was pretty large, but as far as outdoor bathing (Rotenburo) is concerned, it was disappointingly small.

So I mentioned this to one of my friends in Tokyo, telling him that I was looking forward to visiting Ooedo Onsen Monogatari. He tells me that while he likes the place too, he thinks it will be waay over crowded because of the Golden Week. But, he tells me, he knows even a BETTER place, where it won’t be as crowded, and may even be nicer. And, graciously, he offered to come with me.

Since I had been sightseeing near Shibuya that day(which I assiduously try to avoid, especially during summer and moreover, during Golden Week since the streets are jam packed with people), at the NHK Studios, I took the good ol’ Yamanote to Takanobaba, and from there took the subway all the way out to a small town called “Urayasu” in Chiba. There, I met my friends and we took a 20 minute cab ride to a place called “Yumeguri Mangekyo” [湯巡り万華郷], which opened last year. While Ooedo Onsen Monogatari is pretty well known to most people, it seems that many Tokyo-ites themselves never heard of Yumeguri Mangekyo, it being fairly new. When I told my friends that I visited an onsen in Chiba, most of them looked back at me with a blank stare and said “There’s an onsen like that in Chiba”?

Anyway, after a short cab ride, we entered a rather non-descript, yet imposingly large building. Once inside, I began to realize just how huge this building was. The whole of the building was laid down with tatami mats everywhere, and where there were no tatami, it was hardwood floor. Central area is where family and friends gather to chat, relax and maybe eat an ice cream cone or have a meal at many restaurants inside.

The first order of business was removal of our shoes and stuffing them in a locker. Afterwards, we all receive a bracelet which we are to wear at all times, since the bracelet has a barcode that identifies our party whenever we wanted to purchase anything in the place(hard to carry a wallet when you’re naked in a hot bath), and the bracelet also had a key hanging from it that opened our own lockers.

We then approached the counter where we request our yukata(light summer robes). We even got to choose our own design on the yukata. Women’s yukata were of floral design, quite pretty, and men could choose more somber, manlier patterns. My friend chose a white one with swirly patterns, and I chose a very dignified traditional pattern. Along with yukata, we were also given a bag containing two towels, one to dry oneself off, and the other to actually take into the bath.

At this point, the two ladies accompanying us headed off to the ladies section of the onsen, and my friend and I headed off to men’s section. After getting nekkid with only a small towel to gird my ah, nether region, my friend and I trotted off to the showering area to wash ourselves off sitting on a wooden stool. After a long day of hiking around Shibuya in heat and exceeding humidity, this felt great. There were even toothbrushes and shaving kits for free so you can really get clean.

Having suitably un-grimed ourselves, we then head off into the outdoor bathing area, one of maybe 15 or 20 such bathing spots. Of course, men and women are segregated, but there is also a large, beautiful outdoor bath the size of a huge swimming pool landscaped with trees and rocks and even a waterfall that is co-ed, but you have to wear a swimming suit in this area.

After a good soak in these baths, we decide to sweat it out in a dry sauna. Sitting inside this cedar-lined box of a hot room, I began to pour sweat immediately, even from places I didn’t know I had sweat pores. Looking up at the wall, I see that the room is a toasty 85 degrees…CELSIUS. Damn, doesn’t water boil at 100? Anyway, every bead of sweat from my body actually felt burning hot as it rolled down my face. I knew something so painful just HAD to be good for me. My friend and I glace at each other and say “Okay. No matter what, we’re staying in here for five minutes.” Let me tell you, that had to be the longest 5 minutes of my life. But stepping out of the sauna after five minutes, my body felt so light that I felt like I could fly.

After another vigorous shower and the dryoff, we head into the lounge area for men, which is outfitted with hair dryers, hair mousse, aftershave, lotion, etc., basically everything one needs after a bath. Donning our yukata once again, we meet with the ladies and go out to the deck with cold mugs of Asahis in our hands and cigarettes, everyone practically beaming since we’re so squeaky clean!

And it was time for dinner, and we settle down to a nice meal inside an izakaya in the building. Stretching out on the tatami floor, we drink mugs and mugs of Asahi, all while enjoying unusual yet delicous dishes that the izakaya served. And all it takes is the waiter coming by and scanning our bracelet, the bill to be settled when we are leaving the premise.

After our meal, we rent swimming suits and we head to the common bathing area where both men and women can bathe together. The night was sparklingly refreshing, and bathing under the moon near the waterfall was especially enjoyable.

But, closing time came pretty quickly, as Mangekyo closes its doors at midnight. We return our yukata, settle the bill(actually my friend settled the bill), and pile into a taxi to return home. Since I was staying in Ueno at the time, and it being past midnight, we had no choice but to take the taxi all the way back from Chiba.

The entrance fee is about 2,700 yen, and the place opens around 11 am. The best way to get there is probably taking the Keiyo line to Urayasu station in Chiba, then taking a cab to the place. The Mangekyo boasts 38 different spas, with 10 restaurants, you can literally spend the whole day there.

Highly recommended.

I wrote earlier about my visit to Sapporo beer musuem in the town of Sapporo Hokkaido (another attempt at plugging that post). While they don’t actually brew beer at the museum building, the place is nevertheless a fascinating place to visit to tour the old beer memorabilia as well as probably my primary reason for visiting, beer tasting! Yep, I got good sloshed there, no doubt.

Sapporo beer from the city of Sapporo makes imminent sense, so it should be no surprise that in the neighborhood of Ebisu, one would find, naturally, Yebisu beer.
Where did the “Y” come from in front of “Ebisu”? Is this linguistic equivalent of “Yen”? Both words have “Y” in front of it, yet neither is pronounced that way. Well, I’m sure there’s an explanation, but I’m not going to bother finding out for now.

Yebisu used to be available in the States, but for some reason, they’ve withdrawn this fine product. Even in Japan, Yebisu is considered one of the better beers, but I sure as hell can’t tell the difference.

Sapporo. Now “Bitter and Sharp”. Is that a good thing?

At any rate, Yebisu and Sapporo are two brands of the same company, and Sapporo Brewery headquarter is nestled in this charming neighborhood on the JR Yamanote line. Basically, go around and around on the Yamanote until the British sounding lady on the recording tells you to get off the train at Ebisu. Once there, take the East exit, and go up to the “Skyway”, and ride the moving sidewalk for what seems like an eternity, and you’ll end up on, of all places, a very European looking plaza packed with restaurants, shops, and of course, the Yebisu Beer Garden Place.

It’s an attractive sort of place with red bricked sidewalks, sculptures, and sitting places in a rather large open plaza. On the day that I was there, there weren’t that many people, since seeing as how I got there nearly six p.m., and some place were closing for the evening along with the museum.

This was unfortunate, since I didn’t get to do my favorite activity, i.e., beer drinking, but I did get chance to do a quick look around the joint. I was able to see a large vat or boiler of some sort, as well as large cans of Sapporo and Yebisu… that was about it. On the other hand, the souvenir shop was still very much open, so I picked up some beer-flavored caramel that sort of didn’t taste like beer(which I guess is a good thing), an awesome “automatic bottle opener”, along with other knick-knacks.

Sapporo Beer Caramel. Sorry about that huge space on the right…

I do think this area would be a swell place to just relax and have a leisurely time in, and the atmosphere around the museum is certainly conducive to that. If you have the chance to visit the area, make note of the fact that there are a metric buttload of restaurants and some bars there, so picking a dining place should be a cinch.

As I wandered through the vast city of Seoul, my eyes kept catching glimpses of something called “Hi Seoul Festival”. From what I could glean from hyperkinetic posters on trainstation walls and taxis and generally, well, everywhere, it’s supposed to be about music, food, and fun and such. When was Seoul NOT about these things? Anyway, it seemed like there would be way too many people at these things, so I decided to skip it.

What I ended up doing was visiting the “63 Building” on Yoido, so called that because it has, you know, 63 floors. And it was feautured in Sim City 3000. Really.

By no means a very tall building elsewhere, but regardless, it’s pretty damn tall building in Korea(3rd tallest), and I, lacking much else to do, went to check it out. It being a Saturday, the building was mobbed with crowds everywhere, and lunatic kids running around. But, on the bottom of the building cafe, I got a very decent cup of iced coffee, so there is that.

Now I’ve been on some tall building in my time, such as… uhm… Empire State Building, Eiffel Tower, etc., so the height of the building wasn’t necessarily impressing me, but at the same time, being a total acrophobiac, it did give me a good dose of vertigo regardless.

The observation deck has some pretty spectacular views of the Han River, many bridges, mountains, and many, many stacks of ubiquitous Korean high rise apartments. They sure look drab from the outside, but believe you me… some of them are like palaces inside. The day was a particulary un-hazy day, so it seemed like one could see for miles all around.

It’s said that a woman should not wear a dress or a skirt when she visits the observation deck of this building. Those words mystified me until I was there. I’ll keep the suspense for you readers for you to find out why for yourselves. All I have to say is I wish maybe more women should wear skirts visiting this place. But then, I’m also a pervert.

Leaving the “63 Building”, I headed to the banks of the River Han, to see what the hell all the commotion was, with balloons and and tents and stuff. And Lo! One of my favorite things, a Food Fair! Being Famished, this is like an oasis in a desert. I hurriedly made my way towards the tents that had smoke pouring out of them. And you know, where there’s smoke, there’s grilled meat!

There were maybe 50 stalls stationed along the bank of the river, serving everything from Bulgogi(grilled beef), spicy yakitori, fried chicken, bibimbap, korean seafood pancakes, pigs parts, corn, well, you name it. They even had Bun-deh-gi, the pupa of a moth or something. And yes, I had some.

The food was very delicious and generous in portion. I was happy to find several tents vending ice cold Cass beer, and it seemed like all was right with the world. To top it all off, nearby was a free concert, feauturing neo-classical Korean folk music and Fusion-y Traditional Korean music with some funky World beats.

And I realize that this is one of the “Hi Seoul Festivals” that I thought I’d give a miss. Kind of glad the way it worked out, though.

It is with certainty that I can say that I’ve never once seen a “Mr.Donut” restaurant in America. It purportedly began selling donuts first in Boston, a city I have visited many a times, but not once have I had the pleasure of being in, let alone seeing one there. Dunkin’ Donuts? Yes. Boston’s filthy with them. But Mister Donut? Not so much.

This strikes me as kind of odd, since Mister Donut, AKA “Misdo” is practically everywhere in Japan. I love this place, since this is one place you can get their trademarked, and indeed, their most well known donut, the “Pon-de-Ringu”, roughly translated “Ring of Bubbles”. It’s called that since the donut, which is handmade, has a shape of ring of pons. Bubbles, I mean.

The chewy pastry even has its own mascot, the greedy lion called “Pon-de-Lion”, whose mane is made of, you guessed it, pon de ringus. He’s sort of an auto-cannibal, as the brochure states that whenever he gets hungry, he eats his own pons around his head. I mean, comeon, this has to violate some kind of second law of thermodynamics or something. He eats his own mane?

Whatever, the food there is delicious, and I used to be a regular eater at the joint. Not only are delicious pastries sold, but you could get things like soup and noodles, which to me, is pretty radical. I was once obsessed with getting a “Pingu” plate and bowl set, which had the most kickass penguin imprints on the plate and the bowl, all for you if you collected enough points on your “Misdo card”. Is it weird to be this infatuated with a donutery? Perhaps. But if you were to ever eat in one, you might understand.

Korea has been cruelly deprived of this fine eatery, instead, Seoulites having to make do with previously mentioned “Dunkin’ Donuts”, which, bizarrely enough in Korea, is considered a nice place to take your dates. Kind of different where Dunkin’ is a grumpy taxi driver’s hang out in America.

I did take coffee and donut in Dunkin’ Donut in Myun-Don in Seoul, and smack dab in the middle of crowded streets of Myun-Don, it’s a three floors of donut and coffee extravaganza. My experience was tainted by the fact that in Korea, if you want a bag for your purchases, you have to pay… like a nickel or something. But damn, yo! that stuff adds up!

Anyway, I had my plate of donuts and coffee to eat in, but because I suck at speaking Korean, the mean ol’ counter lady ended up charging me for the packaging, as if my food was to go.

Enough about Dunkin’ Donuts. What you really want to know more about is Misdo, isn’t it? Well, so one day I was strolling through the streets of Myun-Don, I see plastered on a window of a convenience store a sign that reads “Korea’s First Mister Donut! Opening Soon! in Myun-Don!”

Damn, this got me all hot and bothered.

So, on the morning of the grand opening, I waited in line to be one of the first 250 customers to walk through the door, so I could win a prize. I have to say, I hate waiting in lines, and I would never wait in line for say, a concert or PS3 or what have you, but dude! This is Pon-de-Ringu we’re talking about, so I lined up with about 500 other hungry Koreans in the morning before Misdo’s grand opening.

Oh, it was grand.

There were costumed Pon de Lions prowling about, and balloons, and streamers and well, the anticipation was at a fever pitch!

I was maybe first 200 to reach the door, and for my trouble, I could draw for a prize… grand prize being free donuts for a year! In my head, visions of me as a fat pudgy bastard floated around. Eagerly, with the help of ever helpful Pon de Lion, I drew out the prize of…

Pon de Lion Cell phone strap.

Well, it’s not a year’s worth of free donuts, but I’ll take what I can get.

Oh, and the donuts?

Very delicious, chewy, warm, and not too sweet. It’s everything that it should be in a donut, now available in Seoul. So, if you’re ever in the area (Near Saboten Shinjuku Tonkatsu/Omutomato), go in and say “hi” to Pon de Lion.

And eat his mane before the greedy bastard eats his own.

I’d have to say I had an interesting experience riding in a Korean subway.

Now Seoul subway system is a marvelous engineering, taking you and your lazy non-walking ass anywhere you want to go in Seoul… most likely to go drinking or eating. But, did something change on these subways or is it me? I recall Seoul subway being unbearable exercise in putting up with rude-ity, with loud and obnoxious riders practically screaming on their cellphones or doofuses listening to music real loud-like.

I haven’t seen much of that this time.

In fact, I found myself riding the subway much more often than I used to, sometimes preferring it over taxis when there’s a lot of traffic on the surface. It also helps that the ticket is a buck.

But what is it with the transfers? For example, for me to travel from the nearest station to my hotel to anywhere intersting, I have to transfer once, maybe twice. I don’t really mind that, but sometimes I’d have to walk for ten minutes underground and countless flights of stairs to change lines. Most Koreans don’t seem to mind, and I’m just probably being a non-Seoulite whiner, but DAMN.

Anyway, the interesting story on the train:

The car that I was trundling along in was pretty much fully occupied, and I was staring blankly at the space in front of me as I contemplated the long “transfer walk” that lay ahead of me. Then, I see this tall white dude in a suit walking by my seat, which is not at all unusual in Seoul, as the city is teeming with foreigners learning to make kimchi or what have you.

He looks around, and spots me, and hands me a flyer, and begins to read from a type of script to everyone on the train in fairly fluent Korean. This is odd, because he handed the flyer to no one BUT ME. In the entire car.

What the?

So I read the flyer, and realize it’s a “Get married in Unification Church” Run by no other than the Moonies.

This got me to thinking:

He gave me the flyer to me and only me because:

1: It looked like I’m just the sort of person who’d love the idea of mass marriage wth 20,000 other couples, or,
2: I looked just like the type of dude who’d join the Unification Church run by Rev. Moon.

Either way, I was flattered.

Here, I even took pictures of the flyer.

Busan is a rather pretty city. I hadn’t noticed this before, since the last time I was here, I just blew through the city on my way to Seoul, but this time, I did the proper tourist thing, and spent some more time in this port city.

Arriving in the train station, it was a quick taxi ride to “Jagalchi” Fish market, and by the sheer scale and the number of stalls and shops that sell various assortment of fresh seafood, you’d think the entire Busanite’s diet consists of fish, crabs, and shellfish. Actually, that might not be stretching the truth much, since it seemed like most people who were shopping in this sprawling market were mostly locals. Afterall, what is a tourist going to do with five pounds of slimy snake-looking fish?

The outside market is teeming with vendors, but once you enter the rather nice indoor fish market, prepare to be blown away. I’ve never seen anything like it, with rows upon rows of stalls each selling some sort of seafood, and the place is densely packed with fish tanks, holding tanks, and just plain seawater gushing everywhere, especially the floor. Don’t even think about entering this place wearing sandals. Fortunately, I was wearing a sturdy pair of non-slip shoes, and even that was a dicey proposition, as the entire first floor might as well be as slick as a water theme park.

Second floor is where patrons go to eat the abovementioned seafood. Once again, the whole of second floor is packed densely with restaurant stalls, each proclaiming to have fresher seafood than the one next to it. I must have counted at least forty such restaurants.

With this many number of places all selling the same food, how does one choose? I suggest the reader not dilly-dally trying to pick a place to eat. If you stroll through this area, every vendor will try to grab yo and amke you sit at their table. At first, I felt bad declining each and everyone, but after a while, getting desperately hungry, one must simply choose, and my criteria was which restaurant had the best view.

I chose one with a nice large (electrically operated)window facing the beautiful harbor.

Sitting on the wooden floor(no chairs here… it’s all Korean style). It was decided that the meal would be (LARGE) sashimi set. While hirame(flounder, my favorite) was one of the most delicious sashimi I’ve ever had, the sheer amount and variety of “service” dishes made my head swim. There were live octopus(I finally ate some. I tried to re-enact the sushi bar scene from the movie “Old Boy”. ), Hoya(sea squirt), some kind of marinaded fish, conch, shrimp, abalones, some othe kind of crunchy fish, and dozen other plates i can’t remember now.

and to top it all off, really excellent “meh-oon-tang”, a type of spicy fish soup.

If you are a seafood lover, I can hardly recommend a better restuarant(s) than the one you will find in “Jagalchi” Fish Maket. Make sure you bring your appetite.

Sorry for the delay in postings lately. I’ve been traveling in Korea, and have had preciouls little time to write.

I took a day trip from Seoul to the seaside city of Busan couple of days ago. Normally, it would be pushing it to travel to Busan for a day and return on the evening, but with the KTX, the Korean Bullet train, it’s feasible.

Having skipped lunch to rush to the Seoul Station, I missed breakfast and lunch. But I figured I would just grab something quick and eat on the train. Inside Seoul Station are many restaurants, serving anything from traditional korean meals to quick burger joints. Cultural philistine that I am, I went for the quick burger joint, the Lotteria. Now, Lotteria in Japan and and the ones in Korea differ, in that I’ve never seen “Bulgogi burger” in Japan. Bulgogi, of course is Korean BBQ.

Another surprise item at the Lotteria: Squid Burger. Oh, yeah, I just HAD to try this one.

The Bulgogi burger taste quite good, and I would highly recommend it. Squid burger, on the other hand, may not be to everyone’s liking, but it’s actually quite good too. It’s kind of a fried onion ring tasting thing, and didn’t really taste like squid, although the texture was certainly there.

Something about traveling makes me a greedy pig, and I also stopped by at the train station’s doshirak(bento) store. To those of you expecting Japanese style bento will be profoundly disappointed, as korean bento technology leaves something to be desired. One of the joys of riding around in a train in Japan is its endless variety of bento, but here, it seems that we’re pretty much left with “Tuna Nude”, whatever hell that means. basically, it’s just rolls with bits of tuna in it, and it wasn’t really that great. on the other hand, they do give you a little plastic sealed cup of water, and it only costs like $3.50, so I suppose one can hardly complain.

The KTX ride this time around to Busan was a lot more pleasant. The riders of the train were quiet, non-obnoxious, and for the most part, no different than the Shinkansen riders of Japan. I still wished that the seats rotated, so that I wasn’t riding backward, as KTX’s trains have fixed seats.

Rifling through the KTX literature, it seems that the KTX-II, to be unveiled in a few years will address this problem and will have seats that rotate to face the direction of the train’s travel. Also, while the current KTX is a joint venture between the French Alstom and indigenous Korean tech, KTX-II will be all Korean domestic, and I’d have to say, better looking as well.

The trip took about three hours, and this is because the KTX shares the common rails of slower non-bullet trains. It seems that the original plan was to have exclusive KTX rails, but what with Asian financial crisis of few years back have forced the Korean Rail to cut costs. So on some sections, the train moves terrifically fast(over 300kmh), but in most other sections of the railway, crawls along at other train’s speed. KoRail is also addressing this issue, and will have all KTX rail soon, shaving the travel time between Seoul and Busan to about two hours or less.

Lexus, and to lesser extent Infiniti and Acura are a well known success story in the automotive world. They seemed to have come out of nowhere, establishing a Japanese luxury brand while the traditional German manufacturers were guffawing at the audacity and apparent foolishness of these Japanese luxury upstarts.

“Hey, Ingo, did you hear? Toyota ist making ein luxury kar!”
“HAR har har! Ja, Dis ist ridiculous! We have been making ze Ultimate Driving machine for fifty years! Ve haf nothink to fear from ze Japanese.”

Well, no one is laughing now, as some of the best luxury cars are coming from Japan, and as an evidence of their success, Lexus is now being sold in Japan(previously the marque did not exist in Japan).

Not all Japanese car manufacturers have been successful at establishing an upmarket brand in America; Mazda had a go with “Amanti” division, but it was stillborn, presumably, because financials didn’t make sense.

So should we be laughing when Hyundai says it’s going to start selling a luxury sedan in America? The vehicle, for now, is called “Genesis”, and is the first rear wheel driven, V-8 sedan from a Korean car maker. V-8 is significant, since most snobbish luxury car buyers don’t take a sedan seriously unless the hood has 8 cylinders stuffed in it. Witness the incredibly slow selling Acura RL, with its V-6 being left in the dust by Lexus LS series with its big honkin’ V-8. Never mind that RL has an ass-kicking 290 horse power V-6, nor the super SH handling thingie, as well as my personal sybaritic favorite, motorized window shades and sound system that rattles my fillings. Damn fine car, but for most people, no V-8, no cigar.

So Hyundai takes a bold gamble, following in the footsteps of brands like Toyota and Nissan by introducing its V-8 sedan with 4.6L engine, 6 speed auto tranny, achieving 0-60mph under six seconds. Of course, the interior will have all the leather trimmings and neat electronic gizmos.

So that’s that. But also from Korea comes this nifty little car, purported to be the country’s first “Supercar”, called Proto Spirra. Claimed performance is 0-100kmh in 4.4 seconds (I suppose that might mean 0-60 in 4.1 sec?) with a top speed of 305 km/h. With a mid-mounted 4.6L V-8, as well as the scissor door, this is the type of car I’d like to see coming out of Korea more often.