西洋오랑캐

This weekend I ended up doing more in two days than I had since the begining of September. Here’s a brief run down of the madness that went down. Saturday evening I got a call from Darrell that went something like, “We’re in Hongdae drinking with that guy from TV. You wanna come?” “Sure.” So I head out to drink in Hongdae with “the guy from TV.”

Turns out “the guy from TV” was Stephen Revere, host of the television program Let’s Speak Korean on Arirang TV. So at this party jam, I macked it to a geeky Korean girl, only to be cock blocked by a guy from Nepal. Seriously how did a guy from Nepal cock block me? Anyhow it made no matter…I headed home alone to rest up before my Sunday hiking trip went down.

Earlier in the week I had made plans with my friend 진희 to go climb a mountain with her and some her friends. I arrived at the subway station where we were scheduled to rendez-vous, and while I was waiting 진희 called me up to inform me that her friends would be unable to attend, so we would be trekking up 북한산 (北漢山 / Bukhan Mountain) alone. Fine by me!

So up the mountain we went. The weather was great! It kind of cool, there was a nice breeze, and the sky was clear. As we hiked up the mountain we chatted about this and that. All in all it was a really nice hike. At one mountain peak, we stopped to eat some 김밥 and have some 두유 (soy milk), and then snapped some photos. After chowing down (and taking pictures) we started heading down the mountain.

Here I am atop 북한산.

View of Seoul from 북한산. Love that smog!

Somehow in the course of our journey we ended up going across the top of a mountain range and came down an entirely different mountain. As we were coming down the mountain we happened upon a small area with exercise equipment. So we stopped to do some situps.

Exercising on 북한산.

진희 exercising on 북한산.

Once at the bottom of the mountain we caught a bus and headed off to meet one of her friends in 신천 for dinner. Her friend was very nice, and way too complimentary telling me that I was good looking, kind, funny, and could speak Korean well…all not true, but still it’s nice to hear such things. After dinner 진희 and I bid adieu to her friend and headed off to City Hall to check out the 2005 Seoul Drum Festival.

진희 and I in a subway station after our mountain climbing adventure and our dinner with her friend. We were heading off toward City Hall to go catch some Drum Festival.

The drum festival was truly awesome. We sat on some mats on the lawn of city hall in the cool fall air and watched insanely awesome drummers from all around the world. I attempted to take some pictures, but most turned out like junk. 진희 took some better pictures than I did, so I will have to snag then at some point.

Drummers rocking out at the 2005 Seoul Drum Festival. During the drum festival, while some America drum squad known as “Blue Devils” was performing (and blowing my mind) I told 진희 I’d never heard of them before which prompted her to ask who were some famous drum squads in America…the best I could come up with was the guys in STOMP (since she but the kabosh on drummers who are parts of bands). Other acts featured were Bob Percussion Duo who were two Swedish dudes who had taped techno noises, and did crazy drum beats over it on drum kits that included way too many tom drums and no kick drum at all, and 뿌리패 (Root Gang [or Group depending on how you want to translate it]). 뿌리패 rocked traditional Korean drums, and rocked the hell out of them. There were about a million dudes in this band and most had mullets, or long rocker hair in pony tails, like they should have been playing in a Slayer cover band as opposed to a traditionally Korean percussion band…

After the Festival came to an end, we head off to our respective homes, and made plans for next weekend. 아싸!