23 December 2010

More photo's

4 of my friends and I finally got a day off so we all decided to go up to Suwon and just wander around to see what was up and these were some of the better shots I took that night.
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On the cross bridge in front of suwon station.

11 December 2010

New camera!

After getting more interested in photography I have decided to take the plunge and buy a "real" camera, a DSLR. More specifically a Nikon D3100. Now mind you this is an entry level camera but it should still work great for my purposes. Going from the cheapest point and shoot I could buy at the BX to this is a big jump in quality and involvement. Now I am looking at lenses and drooling over all of the awesome shit I get to waste my money on (My favorite thing to do it seems like).


well enough blathering and on to the first few keepers I have shot since last night.
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02 December 2010

Yay Speedhunters and stuff

Yeah so Speedhunters has blog post up about Mike Pollard who I shared my car with for about 2/3rd's of the matsuri since I was broke and Mike had pretty much decimated his car. "Awesome American Military guy" I wonder who that was.

http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/12/01/driver-blog-mike-pollard-gt-gt-the-drift-matsuri-experience-casey-add-pix-here.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

29 November 2010

Some raw footage...

...of me at ebisu's south course culminating in a nice wall tap that I happened to get on film.

Short clip from Ebisu's School Course from paul otlewski on Vimeo.

25 November 2010

Matsuri Moments

So I finally finished my video I made from all of the go pro footage from my time in japan.

Matsuri Moments from paul otlewski on Vimeo.


Most of this is from earlier in the week or the first day of the festival itself since Go pro's do not film well at night. Also even though I was driving much better on Sunday (So much practice time) I couldn't be bothered with actually filming because I was pretty tired from drifting all night.

Anyways please don't be too harsh on it.

22 November 2010

Well everything worked out

From my last post you could probably guess I was really pissed off and you would be right. I was very frustrated by the fact that I ended up missing my flight due to people who are supposed to be slightly concerned about my well being, in reality they are not at all.

Despite all of this I made it to Japan although a day late with a lighter wallet than I expected to have. Now having time to reflect on the trip as a whole makes me wish I was a better writer and could weave a story that would be able to explain just how amazing my trip really was. The truth is I don't even know where to start but I did find a video that might help convey how at least the Matsuri part of the weekend went down.

Autumn Drift Matsuri 2010 - Ebisu Circuit, Japan from Remi Schouten on Vimeo.


I met the creator of this little masterpiece, he was a very interesting person to talk to also he has an awesome blog about his travels in Japan, its located at www.okidokyo.com

I will post the video I made in a few days but it is no where near as awesome as Remi's.

06 November 2010

So im sorta pissed

Yeah turns out my supervisor fails at life and didn't approve my leave request and I still do not have my leave orders and I will have to go into work in the morning on monday and run around like the proverbial chicken with its head chopped off to make sure I can catch my flight to Japan on time.

Sometimes I really hate the military.

But if everything goes well than I will be on my way to Japan on monday yay!

23 October 2010

YAY! missile cah

so I buy this car. It is sitting at ebisu right now waiting for me. It is a A31 cefiro.
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15 October 2010

Seoul Tower + engrish

So I decided I wanted to go to the tower since it is starting to get chilly out and I wasn't going to have many more chances before it gets cold outside. It is at the top of this small mountain in the center of Seoul itself. The tower base is actually high enough that I had my ears pop on the way up. When I headed off base there was a air show happening, so people where naturally trying to get on base to watch it. This was the first time I had ever seen a Lotus Elan so I had to take a couple pics.
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05 September 2010

Typhoons a blowin'

So I had thought when I came to South Korea I had finally gotten away from the hurricanes that had been a decent chunk of my life while living in Florida or South Carolina. Technically I did, they call them Typhoons here... Fuck.

Here are some aftermath pics of Typhoon Kompasu after it rolled through last Thursday.

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29 August 2010

Not car related but still sorta cool

I went out to a Zipline park last weekend and it turned out to be alot of fun. I made a video to go along with this post. Well I'll just let it speak for itself.

Zipline Park ROK [The movie] from paul otlewski on Vimeo.

17 August 2010

One step foreward...

So I have purchased my tickets for japan. The biggest benefit in my mind of being in south korea is my relative proximity to japan. It is only a 2 hour trip by plane from Incheon ROK to Narita Japan. Also the price for the ticket, round trip was only $352 USD. Freaking awesome! Now to put a deposit on a missile car.

Just 10 weeks left :D

27 July 2010

Counting down the weeks

13 weeks until I get to take leave and go to japan on vacation. The time can not pass by quick enough. I am fully planning on buying a missile car through www.powervehicles.com to completely thrash at the autumn drift matsuri in november. In reality its not that long from now but I just wish the months would go by a bit quicker.

25 July 2010

New pics of the heap



So my buddy Alan who is storing my car at his place went out for a drive and saw a cool place to stop and take some pics. These were taken with the camera on his phone. I think they turned out pretty good despite that.







I think next time a real camera is in order. Plus the car needs a bath and some of the missing bodywork reinstalled.

02 July 2010

Keeping with the Oldie theme

since I have nothing "New" to post I got bored and uploaded a video that I hadn't bothered to put online.

MB drift in car run from paul otlewski on Vimeo.



Story is that this is a On car shot from my qualifying runs at MB drift. The first run I totally fubar'ed because I didn't warm my tires up and they were cold from taking a break earlier. The second run I went out and drove balls out but I still made a bunch of mistakes biggest of all was driving through the exit the wrong way netting me a off course and I DQ'ed myself. I was told later on after the competition by one of the judges that that run would have been worth the 2nd qualifing spot if I hadn't drove off course. Ohh well I still had fun either way.

ohh BTW this little POS blog just hit the 1000 hit milestone. yay and stuff, not that impressive I know.

06 June 2010

The apparent korean car scene


Yeah, so far I have been here 3 months and I have noticed some trends here in korea. Their cars tend to be pretty riced out, but most all of them have what would be pretty legit wheels in the states except for their sizing. They tend to run 15's and 16's predominantly but they are work's ray's gram light's volk's BBS's advan's.

Here are some examples
This car i saw in the parking lot of E-mart
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korean's seem to like putting very long engrish sayings on the their cars

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Its sitting on a set of Gram lights but with weird positive camber in the front and really an overall weak stance seems to be the norm here.

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Ricetastic
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Knock off works
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This car is owned by an American who works on base, I haven't met him yet but his car is pretty funny looking although it fits in with the ricey stuff that rolls down the streets here.

On the other end of the spectrum are the random dope cars I see, one of the cool things I noticed is I have been seeing quite a few kia forte's with dry carbon fiber roof skins. I am not sure if it is a factory option since I have seen very stock looking examples with CF roof's. Seems extravagant to go for that right from the get go.
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this forte was mean as hell looking.
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this car surprised me, a set of decent fitting(for korea) BBS LM wheels. Thats a big chunk of change just in wheels right there.
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And this Z4 was riding around on work VS's
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I have also been seeing a small number of Vip style cars popping up, most of them are still pretty high off the ground or kinda wack but this one was very clean and the best example I have seen here to date
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Nice.

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I also saw this display in the yongson subway terminal advertising the fact that formula 1 is coming to south korea in october. I can't wait.

01 June 2010

Been awhile...




.. since my last post, I have been working alot. I took a tour to the everland theme park last month specifically to go to the racetrack they have there. Its one of the only ones in the entire country. Well I come to find out when i get there that it is closed for renovations and I couldn't get any info of when it was going to open back up so well I went to the theme park for the day instead. It was your pretty standard kids theme park but since it was in april the cherry trees were in full bloom and were amazing to look at.

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It was only 30 bucks to get in for the whole day and surprisingly almost everyone who worked there spoke english so I really didn't have any difficulties while i was there. I still felt bad that I couldn't speak any korean. I am still learning bits and pieces.

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Yeah its a kids park alright but still all the colors were so bright i figured these pics would come out pretty decent. I mean the camera was only 100 bucks so considering that I don't think they came out to bad.

Despite being a kids park though they had a couple sick roller coasters.

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This wooden one scared the crap out of me! Mostly because the support beams were no clearance for taller riders... I literally thought I was going to hit my head on these beams at 40-50 mph. I would have been ex-paul.

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I could say more about the park but really the pics can give you a good idea on what it is like.

27 April 2010

DMZ tour

So I have decided that every Saturday that I can I will be taking a tour somewhere if I can help it. I have been here 3 weeks and I have taken a tour every weekend so far. The second tour that I went on was to the D.M.Z. or Demilitarized Zone. This is the 4km wide Corridor between north and south Korea.

This place is something else. It makes you feel like full scale war could break out any minute between the two. Even though I was only visiting you can just feel the tension in the air since it really is a full on stand off. Their weapons are pointed at us and our weapons are pointed at them. Its been this way for more than 60 years, crazy stuff. Well enough talk, on to the pics.

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This was built as a memorial to the years of separation and in hope that in the 21st century the two Koreas can once again be one.
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the bell weighs 21 tons! symbolizing the 21st century.
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as you can the the fortifications are pretty intense
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another shrine to reunification
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This hunk of rust is a train that was attacked in the korean war and was stranded in the DMZ for over 50 years, it was recovered and put on display. This thing is a big symbol of the war to south Korea.
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a pool in the shape of Korea north and south with a barbed wire strip separating them. Normally this would be filled and the fountains would be going if it were summer time.
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A couple Korean biker guys. I thought the Interstate 777 sign on his back was funny.
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another shrine
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a 3d map of just how close to north korea the observatory I was at to north korea.
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Lunch, I wasn't sure what some of this stuff was but it was all pretty good eating.
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I assume another shrine, im not sure.
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this place distracted me for a bit and I am trying to figure out how to get back up there to go Karting.
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A wall with all the names of people who contributed money to open a railway station going to north Korea. Its sad that the north isn't interested.
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This place was built to symbolize the souths intent to unite with the north
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painting of the train I posted farther up. This was inside the station.
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Brand new state of the art station that has never been used.
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President Bush came to the grand opening of the station and signed a railroad tie, They make a really big deal about this.
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hey I know that guy
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this is the sign for the US/ROK army base in just on the edge of the DMZ, you have to pass through this place to get to the JSA.
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In this building you get a briefing about how dangerous the are you are going into is and you have to sign a waiver that you realize that fighting could break out at any time and that they cannot guarantee your safety. I kept my waiver lol.
We were not allowed to take pics on the way to the JSA so I have to skip that part.
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This is a Statue in the JSA, another reunification deal. Its supposed to look like two hands holding each other.... yeah I don't see it.
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this is the stand off that happens everyday. The south watching the north and the north watching their side for defectors.
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those white posts are markers of the actual Demarcation line itself.
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north korean troops were everywhere watching us.
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this is the room where all the armistice talks are held between the north and the south.
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That concrete slab is the Demarcation line and I am actually standing on the north side of the line. :)
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ROK Ready!
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This is a Fake town that the north setup to make it look like everything in north Korea is awesome. But none of the buildings have windows and nobody even lives there.


Annnnd my camera died. So I didn't Get any more photos than that. If you are ever in south Korea you have to go to the DMZ it really is worth the trip.