To quote the great poet lauret of my times, M.C. Hammer, “We outta here baby!” At present I am way out of South Korea for at least two years, but more likely than not, for keeps. That’s right kids, I’m back in the US and A. Now I could take this time to get all misty-eyed and recap the good times, possibly with some sort of montage set to the Green Day song, “Time Of Your Life,” but where would the fun in that be. So instead I’m going to report on the ten things I will not miss once I leave the country that has been my home these past four years.
1. Random people pointing at me and declaring:
a) “Hello,” or some other random English phrase and then laughing at however I respond.
b) “Wow a foreigner!”
2. 회식. Not so much the meal itself, but the fact that they are pretty much mandatory here. Seriously I have better things to do on a Friday evening that hit up noraebang with the boss.
3. Vomit on the streets.
4. Gag Concert, 웃찾사, et. al. I could live here a thousand years, and I still would not understand what makes any of these shows funny.
5. Buses. In particular the 마을 버스.
6. “빨리! 빨리!” There are seriously some things that don’t need to be done at the speed of light.
7. The shock and awe of others at my ability to do incredibly simple tasks such as using chopsticks.
8. …
Aw I can’t do it! I’ve had a great time here I don’t wanna go!!! I’m going to miss cheap as hell Korean food. I’m going to miss wicked fast internet access. I’m going to miss the fact that I can get pretty much everything delivered to my house. I’ll even miss the randomness that are the commercials on AFKN. Camp Casey, Area 2…thanks for being here so I could watch Three Stooges re-runs, and The George Lopez show! Shit…where’s a video of “Time Of Your Life?”
Anyhow that’s it. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue writing here or not, either way I will most likely not do anything before March here, so for the meantime, if you need to get in touch with me send an email. Thanks for everything. This is Wyatt Dunn signing off.
For starters it was my sister-in-law’s wedding day, so for whatever reason we had to get up at the crack of dawn (regardless of the fact that the wedding wasn’t until 12:00). I didn’t have a lot to do to prepare. My suit was already pressed, so all I had to do was get a shower and a shave going on and then stay out of the way of others. I did this by playing Feel The Magic on my my wife’s Nintendo DS.
Anyhow a couple hours later it was 10:15 and we were on our way into Seoul. Why did we leave so early? Apparently to beat the non-existant traffic. Some 25 minutes later we arrived. It is apparently the duty of those family members who aren’t getting married that day to play host. At first I was assigned the task of collecting the envelopes of money and giving out meal tickets to people who arrived, but some uncles took that task from me leaving me to stand by the door and shake the hands of people ranging from those I’ve seen 10 or so time, to those I’ve never met, and thank them for coming. It was far less awesome, and presented far less opportunities to stick my hand in the till.
The wedding itself was pretty much what one comes to expect from a Korean wedding (aside from my own which was totally awesome). Here are some of the highlights from the wedding ceremony that I recall. For starters when the wedding began Jinhui and I both noticed that her father was not seated in his throne (any of you who have attended weddings in Korea know of what I speak), so I was sent to go find him. After a quick sweep of the area turned up nothing I went to return to Jinhui with the bad news of a lost father only to see him leading my sister-in-law down the aisle. I kind of smacked myself in the head and was like, “Oh yeah…this is that kind of wedding.” I’m pretty sure Jinhui had the same reaction.
There was some manner of MC. This particular MC’s speech was awesome, in that he stated, “Now that you are married, the most important thing for you to do is take care of your parents.” I thought that was pretty random. This wasn’t like a 30th wedding anniversary in which the dude was addressing children and grandchildren, this was directed at newlyweds. Also during the ceremony, my mother-in-law had to hug some people (namely her daughter and son-in-law version 2.0), but instead of hugging them or even giving them the “good game” quasi-hug shoulder tap, she just kind of touched their hands. It was kind of humorous.
Following the wedding we went upstairs and had some food. I’m not really all about buffets anymore. There’s always a lot of food there, but nothing is really outstanding. Furthermore, when I go to a buffet I feel the need to gorge myself to “get my money’s worth” even when I’m not actually paying for the food I’m eating. So I usually end up eating too much, busting a gut, and feeling sick for the remainder of the day. This time, since I had to walk around the dining area and tell everyone that Jinhui and I were leaving for America soon and probably would not be seeing them again anytime soon, I did not bust a gut. I was threatened with death, dismemberment, and other acts of violence if I did not take care of Jinhui. On the flipside, one of Jinhui’s aunts told me that if Jinhui didn’t listen to me, I should send her back to Korea and she would make her listen. Good times…good times!
With that all done, we headed for Shinchon. I’m not really sure why but I think it had something to do with going to a record store, since that’s what we did when we first arrived. As we were getting off the subway I found 1,000 won on the ground which is pretty neat. At the record store, I picked up the best of Pipi Band and Pipi Longstocking. While I was looking about I heard Jinhui conversing with the girl at the counter, “Do you have the latest Powerman 5000 album?” “Yes, it’s over here.” “Great! Wyatt, I’m getting this.” Jinhui later explained the reason for her purchase, which is pretty much one of the truest truths regarding rock or any music for that matter, “After I saw them (in this case Powerman 5000, but it can be applied to all musicians) perform live, I was more interested in them and wanted to hear their albums more.” True truth!
With some CDs purchased, we decided to go discharge some fake firearms at one of those shooting galleries that can be found on the side streets in Shinchon. It was 2,000 won each, so we paid with a 5,000 won note and got a 5,000 won note and a 1,000 won note back in return. We then proceeded to shoot targets. I somehow was awesome at shooting the b.b. gun I was given and racked up enough points to win some small stuffed animal (it was a rabbit). Jinhui was slightly less awesome at shooting, though did manage to hit the two smallest / most valuable targets.
Following our shooting gallery experience we traveled to a cinema theater in order to check out the film, 후황花 (En: Curse of the Golden Flower / 滿城盡帶黃金甲). The film was pretty much awesome. It looked outstanding, and unlike 中天, the story was fairly great too.
After said film we went to a bar and got our soju cocktail and stuff on a stick going on. By stuff on a stick I speak of the awesomeness that is 오뎅 and 꼬치. Jawsome!!! From there we got on a bus and rode a bus back to our homestead. It was a pretty rocking day.
I can now cross off “Attend A Birthday Party At A Senior Citizen Center In South Korea” on my list of things to do, since that’s what I did last weekend.
For those of you that care or are perplexed this celebration was for my wife’s grandfather…which I guess makes him my grandfather-in-law (if such things exist). Anyhow he lives in the country and was having a big ass birthday party since he was turning 90 or 91 or 92 (I got all three numbers from different people), so the party was held at the local senior citizen center. There was a decent spread of food but far too many relatives. Relatives are fine in small doses, but when there are that many I feel like I have to say the same junk again and again. “We’re leaving in the begining of February.” “Our flight is on February first.” “The first of February is when we leave.”
Aside from that the other thing that I dislike about these family gatherings is there are always one or two relatives that haven’t seen me before so the novelty of a white guy that can speak Korean is still mind boggling to them. Most of the other relatives: the afore mention grandfather, aunts and uncles, and first cousins have all seen me enough that the novelty has worn off and I’m just “Jinhui’s husband.” But there’s always some second cousin or nephew or some random 팔촌 guy that finds my existance amusing, meaning they try to make me do all the stuff they think only Koreans can do.
“Here eat this kimchi.”
Chomp!
“Wow! He ate kimchi and used chopsticks to do so! Can you drink soju?”
“I can. Seeing as how it’s like 12:00 in the afternoon I’d rather not.”
“C’mon. Just one glass.”
“Fine.”
Chug!
“Wow! You need some anju. Eat this raw beef. You can eat raw beef right?”
“Yes, but since I ate like 3 plates of food before you got here since everyone else wanted to see me eat kimchi and raw foods I’m full and would rather not.”
“C’mon…one small piece.”
“Fine.”
Chomp!
Anyhow I really got off on a tangent there. These aren’t bad people, and after performing for them the one time they’re cool, but for me the performing has gotten old. Where was I?
Oh yeah so I’m in this old folks club house in the middle of nowhere South Korea eating sushi and various stuff rolled in seaweed when my wife hits me with the most random piece of personal information, “I was born here.”
“In the senior center?”
“Well it used to be a house, but they built this center here.”
“So you were born on this land?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think I’m the first white person to ever come into this building?”
“Yes.”
After we ate we went outside where we found this really awesome puppy. He was totally chill and was all about following me around and being my buddy. It kind of made me want to get a dog. Anyhow that’s about it. Like most family events everywhere in the world, this one was all about eating too much food and then having to endure people that you only associate with because of some family ties…not the awesome 1980’s television show kind, but actual family ties. I’m rambling, and this is a really dated post, so I’m finishing now.
Last night I learned the Korean word for a rotating machine because Jinhui and I had dinner at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. A quick thing you should probably know about me: I didn’t eat fish until I was in college, and up until even more recently sushi was not something I would have ever elected to eat. I mean smoked salmon or eel was alright and there were always California rolls, but I wasn’t a big sushi guy. Perhaps it was the fact the I’ve recently read Sushi no Shoto, but I’ve changed.
That being said conveyor belt sushi is totally awesome! The price was decent, and for the same amount we would have paid to get two or three dishes at Bennigan’s or TGIF we were able to sample 10 or 11 different dishes. The best deal for me was some manner of lightly grilled tuna, like it was grilled on the outside but the center was still raw as raw could be. Anyhow, there was something almost video game-esque about a dining experience in which one has to grab their food before it goes past them.
The other day I was in the midst of my daily 5 kilometer run (aka balancing on a moving strip of plastic until a meter displayed 5.00 kM) and watching a little television. Because I usually rock out to some sort of tunes while in the gym, I watch something like Discovery Channel (since it has Korean subtitles) or pro-wrestling since I need no sound. On this particular day in question, the batteries on my mp3 player crapped out at the 1.00kM mark. So I actually watched some television.
Flipping through the channels I found the show, Let’s Speak Korean on Arirang. Let’s Speak Korean was a pretty decent show…emphasis on the word “was.” Back in the day the show was actually informative, the host, Stephen Revere was funny, and the presented advanced enough material that I actually learned things. Oh they also had students…students that were clearly better than me. Not anymore.
This new version of Let’s Speak Korean is terrible! For starters the material covered is really basic junk. This is actually the thing that bugs me the least; in fact I’m a little bit proud that everything I’ve seen is so easy. I actually yelled, “HA! I already know that!” at the TV, which got me a few weird looks for the middle aged ladies that were jogging nearby. Also gone is Stephen Revere, replaced with some Korean dude known as Young. Again I don’t really have a problem with Young. He breaks it down decently, but I never drank beers with him so I don’t know how cool he actual is. What bugs me more is not Young’s arrival, but the fact that the lady named Lisa is still there. She just bugs me. She kind of comes off as really condescending. Again this part is not that bad. She was there before and the show was fine. What bugs me the most is the new “student” guy.
This dude is a total moron! For starters his pronunciation is terrible. If I want to hear foreigners speak Korean poorly I’d record myself and play it back. This is a show that’s supposed to help foreigners learn Korean…get some people on there that can actually speak it. But even this is not that awful. I can kind of see the producer being like, “Let’s get an actual rookie. Other rookie speakers will be less threatened by someone who is making mistakes.” More than his inability to remember similar grammar or vocabulary (”Airport가 어디에요?”), his foreigner caricature makes me want to break some faces.
If you’ve ever seen any English language education show on EBS, you know of the “whiteface” for lack of a better word that a lot of the native speakers engage in. “HI!!!!!! I’M WHITE AND SPEAKING ENGLISH!!!! I’M OUT OF CONTROL!!!! ARE YOU READY TO LEARN ENGLISH!?!?!?!” “Yeah Isaac, we’re ready to learn English…stop dancing please.” Yeah, this guy does it too. Maybe I’m just Oscar the Grouch, but I don’t want to learn anything for a dude that’s dancing around like he’s Barney all going, “WOW!!! SO THIS IS KALBI?!?!?!” Forget you Let’s Speak Korean! I’m going back to Integrated Korean with Michael, the foreigner that speaks perfect Korean, but has never heard of bulgogi before. At least he remembers all the grammar.
I should probably put a picture of my lion that I always draw here, but I’m not going to. Yesterday Jinhui and I celebrated one year of being successfully married with a trip to the theater…to watch a musical. A musical called Lion King, or maybe it was The Lion King. Anyhow, I believe the last time I attended a musical was in middle school, and that time I was actually performing as opposed to simply being in the audience. Oh you didn’t know that? It’s true! In middle school I played a cop and a court stenographer in my school’s production of Hello Dolly! I even had a line. But I’m really off on a tangent here.
Back to the Lion King. I’m a rock guy so I can get away with, “This Band was awesome! They sounded like Billy Idol battling Louie Armstrong,” but somehow things like that don’t really work with musical theater. What does work is something like, “Lion King was totally awesome!” Even that doesn’t really convey how out of control the entire thing was.
Some of you out there might have seen this show in the US or China or even here in Korea, but for those of you that haven’t let me briefly describe it. They started with the plot of the cartoon, The Lion King. To that they added puppets, and dudes in elephant suits, and dancers, and some dudes in a mask that looked like some sort of alligator with ram horns that seriously popped up right in front of me when the show began. The entire thing was so over the top, I’m a little sad that photography was prohibited. But thanks to the internet there are a whole slew of pictures are up on Korea’s offical Lion King musical website.
The entire thing was nuts! I’ve seen Lion King probably 100 times at least, due to the fact that someone in my household (other than me) was obsessed with it in the early 90s (I’m not naming any names), but even still I was still totally stoked. I mean there were dudes in huge elephant costumes coming down the aisle next to me, and guys with birds on ropes that were swung out over the audience. It was outstanding! Also there were some child actors. Child actors normally bug the hell out of me, especially here. Every kid that gets put on a “drama” here in Korea sounds like a robot…even when they are playing characters other than robots, but these kids were different. They spoke like normal people, not that halting, “Hi. My. Name. Is. Simba. I. Swear. I. Am. Not. A. Robot…” kind of delivery that every other Korean child actor uses. Awesome!
And speaking of vocal deliveries, the way in which Mufasa and Scar were portrayed or perhaps just my interpretation of their portrayal seemed a little odd. Maybe I’ve lived here too long, maybe it was scripted that way in Korea, or maybe it was scripted that way everywhere, but those two dudes reminded me a lot of the actors in the various historical dramas that are always on TV here. It was also weird the way some of the lyrics were changed when translated to Korean. The song, “I Can’t Wait To Be King,” became, “멋진 왕 될거야!” (”I’ll Become An Awesome King”).
Even if you don’t understand Korean you should go check it out, since it just looks so awesome. The story is easy enough to follow especially if you’ve seen yourself some Lion King before. If you’ve never seen Lion King, rent the video but definately check out the musical. It was deluxe!
So after the show we went to a Chinese restaurant named Ho Lee Chow’s. Ho Lee Chow’s does American style Chinese food, so there’s General Tso’s Chicken but no 자장면. We ordered some set that came with two bowls of hot & sour soup, some spring rolls, Mongolian beef, a platter of fried rice, and some deal that was called Sichuan Special (it was meat, chicken, shrip, squid, and vegetables in some sort of sauce). This was allegedly a set designed to feed two people, but we ended up taking a lot home with us.
Following dinner we had wine and cheese and then called it a night. That about does it from here, I’m going to go now because I want to play the Lion King Super Nintendo game we had when I was a youth. Before I go, there’s one last thing: When we got off the bus near our apartment, we saw a girl with a hairstyle that looked just like a lion’s mane. Make of that what you will.
There are many a way to celebrate a seemingly pointless event such as the passing of a year. Some people throw private parties with their friends or family which inevitably involves watching Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year on television. Other people trek to some pickpocket rich party at a public venue (ie. Times Square). Some people, realizing that a successful orbit around the sun by the earth is not a truly monumental achievement, elect to celebrate by doing nothing…aside from going to sleep at a reasonable hour. There are those that spend New Year’s Eve like they spend every other evening…trying to level up in (insert your online RPG here). Others spend the night alone, drinking, and cursing humanity. I’ve partaken in my share of those New Year’s celebrate styles, but one thing I’d never done was ring in the New Year doing what Dick Clark only claims to do. Rockin’!
This year, if you couldn’t tell by the title, Jinhui and I elected to say hello to 2007 by attending a rock show featuring Side-B and Veil with guests! The show began at 9:00 pm 12.31.2006 and was slated to go till 1:00 am 1.1.2007. That’s like 4 hours of rocking, which seemed like it would be totally awesome, and believe you me it was!
I said that the show was totally awesome, though you wouldn’t have known that based on the first act of the night. To begin, I might have their name totally wrong, and for that I am sorry since you will not be properly warned to avoid them due to this mistake. Anyhow this group consisted of two women who apparently really loved Whitney Houston. Their set consisted of not one, but two songs made popular by Mrs. Bobby Brown: “I’m Every Woman” and “Greatest Love Of All” to be exact. Anyhow I thought that they were terrible if simply for the reason that one of the two women did that Mariah Carey style way too high singing, and she made my head feel like it was going to explode. The other lady wasn’t that bad, but I really don’t need Whitney Houston cover songs to complete my life. Also the lady that had a voice like a bomb was also sporting a pony tail that came out way too high in the back of her head…kind of like that really minor belly dancer character from the Simpsons. Thankfully they only did the two songs and then bid us a Happy New Year and exited stage left.
I wanted to like Funky Brown. I really did. I mean they came out with guitars and a drummer and everything, but they were just so boring. Imagine if you will a band that’s approximate sound is a melenge of the following musical styles: “What A Fool Believes” era Doobie Brothers, Scatman style vocals, slap bass, and a bass player with a mullet. Somehow when put this all together it did not equal total awesomeness. They played three songs, one of which I liked until they decided to go into “jam band” territory and play the same riff for like 6 minutes while everyone solos and the singer “sings” stuff like, “Boo boo doop dee doo bop doo,” and the mulleted bassist summons the powers of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and does some bass slapping. Somehow when they went into this territory I kind of changed my opinion of the song. It was like, “This song’s not that bad…” “Blap dee doop da doo dap dooo!” “Oh wait…yeah it is that bad.” It was during Funky Brown that I was glad this concert was being held in an auditorium and therefore had chairs. So I could sit down in passive resistance. “No Funky Brown…I will not dance! I am going to sit right here thank you very much.” Oh also everytime the guitarist played a guitar solo he also did the solo with his mouth. So it was like (insert smoking guitar solo here), “Blap bleep boo de boop doo!” I almost thought that he had one of those Frampton Comes Alive! talk box deals, but he was not…he was just scatting to his own solo, which was even lamer than if he had been using a talk box…
Following the mediocracy that was Funky Brown was a woman named 리아 (Lia). She came out and did a quasi-ballad tune. During this song, my wife informed me that Lia had been popular in the late 90s due to the song she was singing at that very moment. Following her big hit, Lia launched into a cover of the Frankie Valli tune, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” during which she ripped off her hair revealing a buzzcut. My jaw dropped. I was totally shocked, much like that dude from Hootie & The Blowfish claimed to be when he learned that Darth Vader was Luke’s father. My wife at this time turned to me and informed me, “Oh yeah, I was going to tell you in the 90’s she used to always have a buzzcut. I thought she grew it out. I guess I was wrong.”
Out of control hair removal and crew cuts aside, Lia was pretty awesome. Her voice kind of reminded me of Yoojin from Cherry Filter, and she had decent stage presence. So she was alright in my book. Plus “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” with quasi-industrial intro? Thank you, Lia. Thank you.
I’d seen Side-B before. Hell, I got on television for doing so. Therefore the awesomeness of Side-B this night did not come as a shock. I knew that they were going to kick ass before they even hit the stage…and unlike trips into wine tunnels, which also should theoretically kick much ass, Side-B really delivered the goods.
The thing that made this particular Side-B show even better was the guy sitting in the row infront of us. To say he was a Side-B fan would not be doing him justice. Let’s put it this way: prior to Side-B taking the stage, he had been sitting next to my wife, but once Side-B hit the stage, he lept over a row of chairs to get a little bit closer. The dude was totally into it, which somehow made me more into it. I was screaming stuff and jumping, and basically telling Side-B how much they rocked. It was awesome! And I think Side-B knew that our section was all about them.
Anyhow the set was good. We got some awesome party jams, some of which featured break dancers and fire. Then there was the slow jam where they pulled a lady out of the audience ala that Bruce Springsteen video with Courtney Cox. There was also a short set by the groups DJs which was totally awesome. The dudes had crash helmets and sampled Mario Brothers, and Dig Dug and played cowbells and bongos. It was great, though not as great as when it was revealed that this night was not only New Year’s Eve, but one of the dude’s birthday.
Some people in the front row gave him a cake. The dude in front of me was going apeshit. He had some loot that he apparently wanted to give the birthday boy. It looked like a DVD and some photos, but I wasn’t really sure. He was jumping up and down, yelling, “Ohh OHH OHHH!!!” like that dude on Welcome Back Kotter attempting to give the dude his birthday present. He was not, to my knowledge, successful. Anyhow Side-B rocked it well, they gave us candy (we had gotten one piece, yet some how it doubled while in Jinhui’s coat), and the one dude had a huge Mickey Mouse hand of a glove on (see the photo at right). Awesome! And the Side-B superfan? He disappeared when they left the stage.
This was Veil’s show, so they were played the longest of anyone. Their set was pretty much perfect. They played some old tracks (stuff off their debut, and from vocalist Kim Won Jun’s days as a solo artist), new tracks (stuff from an EP to be released later this year), and of course some covers. The covers performed were out of control as well. I swear that I am not making this up, but they covered both, “You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party” and “YMCA,” (these two tracks were played back to back if memory serves correctly). I think one of the reasons I like this band, aside from the fact that their tunes are alright, is the fact that they put on an entertaining show.
They had costume changes which included a singer dressed as a cowboy (maybe that cover of “YMCA” makes a little more sense now). The singer had some laser pointer shaped like a gat which he pointed into the audience. There were scantily clad females brought out during the song, “Girls, Girls, Girls” (which is not a cover of the Motley Crue song). The dude from Side-B made a cameo in some mask. There was pyro. The bass player’s mom and dad and younger sibling were in front of me…and his mom was totally rocking out which was pretty awesome. The entire thing was out of control.
And since it was New Year’s Eve, Veil also counted us down and rang in the New Year. In Korea, or at least at Veil concerts in Korea, New Year’s thankful doesn’t feature “Auld Lang Syne,” but rather some other song that every Korean person in the room seemed to know, but I had never heard before. So we rang in the New Year with hugs and kisses (as Veil commanded…and what Veil commands we must do), and they band played the afore mentioned not “Auld Lang Syne” and the vocalists handed out 복조리 (bokjori). I did not get one, but it was still pretty awesome.
The show was outstanding and they played past 1:00 am. Since we live far away, and the subways were scheduled to stop at 2:00 am we hurried out of there, but we unable to make it home, so we stopped in 잠실 and had dinner, and then went to a PC방 until 5:30 when the trains started running again. By 7:00 I was in bed and asleep. It was an awesome New Year. Pictures from this event can be seen here.
Yo what’s crackin’? This week I watched some movies and worked out at the gym and played Gameboy. None of these activities really warrant being written about at any length, so instead you can look at some awesome artwork I did while riding the subway a couple months ago. Ah what the hell…as a bonus I’ll give you one paragraph reviews of the films I saw this week.
누가 그녀와 잤을까?
I was kind of nervous when my wife rented this one, as Korean comedy movies often tends to be well…not particularly funny, but this one was. The story was kind of similar to the film 몽정기 2 in that the central plot revolved around a group of students that lust after a student teacher. Only in this case the students were male and the teacher female…which I guess would make this film more like 몽정기 1, but I digress. The movie was decently funny, and managed to avoid the random serious turn that most Korean comedy films seem to take in the third act (ala the pregnancy and abortion at the end of 색즉시공). If I were to give it a grade I’d say B+ if only due to the fact that the one dude got unwanted boners much like Spinner in that episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation. And as we all know, boners are funny!
The DaVinci Code
Oh my god…was the book this bad too? Seriously this movie was crap. It was like a Hardy Boys mystery with some sort of dumb ass conspiracy theory. It was terrible, boring, and long. Again, was the book this bad? And if it was, why did so many people read it?
Troy
When I was in third grade my friends and I did a moderization of the story of the Trojan War as a school project. This being the mid-1980s, our quest was to get a video game back from a rival elementary school. This film did not feature a copy of Zelda 2, but was none the less entertaining. Lots of good epic battles. Lots of Brad Pitt as Achilles being an ass and roughing up fools. Trojans a plenty! What wasn’t there to like?! Also, unlike the similarly lengthy DaVinci Code, this film didn’t seem like it was two and a half hours long.
Anyhow that’s it. I’ve got junk to do tomorrow and Sunday, so I might not be back until the New Year. If that’s the case, have a good one, and keep it safe.
So the other day Jinhui and I went on a road trip to visit some island and travel into a wine tunnel. The trip seemed like it was going to be awesome. I mean a wine tunnel?! The pictures on the website made it look like some dungeon meets elegant cafe…plus there was going to be wine. And the island? Islands are always cool. So we were both looking forward to this trip, which made the whole thing all the more disappointing.
Our journey began at 9:30pm when we rendez-voused (wow that was some elite conjugation there) with the rest of our tour group at city hall in Seoul. This trip featured a caravan of 5 tour buses packed with tourists. Maybe it was my cynical American upbringing, but there’s something about a busload of people clapping at lame jokes made by a tour guide that just gets under my skin…either that or it actually was annoying. I tend to think the later since my wife (who was not raised in America) was also annoyed by the clapping and rows of people basically yelling, “Right on!” when they learned they would get one Chocopie each…though I may have had a corupting influence on her during the nearly one year we’ve been married.
So anyhow the bus rolled out on this 5 plus hour ride south. “A five hour bus ride at night? That won’t be too bad, I can just sleep the whole way there…much like I did when we went to Busan,” I thought to myself, and perhaps actually verbalized to my wife prior to boarding the bus, but once I was secure in my seat I learned that I wouldn’t be doing much of anything even closely related to sleep. No cat nap. No shut eye. No 40 winks. Bupkiss! For you see, unlike the bus to Busan which was fairly deluxe, this bus was pretty much a school bus, meaning there wasn’t anything like comfort going on in the seats. That coupled with my legs (which are longer than the average Korean’s and therefore not taken into consideration in places like movie theaters or on buses) made for a pretty awful ride. The two or three times I did manage to doze off were interupted by the tour guide getting on the mic, which by the way had more reverb than the average 노래방 (noraebang aka karaoke) microphone, and making some stupid proclaimation.
After trucking for a good amount of time, it was 3:00 in the morning and the bus made a stop at a hot spring / sauna. Since this cost extra and neither my wife, nor I are particularly keen on being nude with members of the same sex complete strangers we elected to skip it…unfortunately we were in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn’t anything else to do but sit on the bus (which now had the engine turned off and was rapidly getting colder) and try to sleep. With the bus pretty much empty now, getting some sleep was a little easier since we could lay where we felt the urge to. Again, by the time I actually got to sleep, the tour guide was back on the horn telling us it was time to roll out.
It was 5:30 in the morning, and as the bus rolled down nauseatingly windy roads the tour guide kept on yapping. What was she yapping about? Not much, but she just kept talking and then people would clap. “No you fools! Don’t encourage her!” At 6:00 we arrived at our destination: breakfast. Now in the time I’ve been here I’ve pretty much overcome my western, “Ew…that’s weird!” reflex when it comes to food. I mean I’ve eaten whales, grasshoppers, fermented bean paste that pretty much smells like ass, the internal organs of a cow… The one thing I won’t eat is creatures that come from a shell: clams, oysters, etc. They just seem like snot. I’ve tried on several occassions to eat them, but in my humble opinion they’re nasty. So imagine how happy a sleep deprived Wyatt that had just spent seven hours on bus was when he discovered that breakfast was a pot of stew consisting entirely of shit in shells.
I decided that I would just eat rice and the side dishes that were at the table. Apparently in my time here I became a connoisseur of rice, since I found this particular bowl to be overcooked and dry. It was hardly the breakfast of champions. With breakfast out of the way, we and the rest of our tour group (which consisted primarily of girls trying way too hard to be cute and their boyfriends) waited around for 7:30 when we could ride a boat…actually it wasn’t a boat, it was a ferry, and it was small.
I saw a sunrise. It did not suck.
They boat ride on the other hand was pretty terrible. As I mentioned, the boat was kind of small, and the sea was angry that day my friend. For my readers that are not pirates, seamen, or sea captains, let me tell you that sailing in a small boat on choppy water is not very fun. I tried to sleep, but again guys on microphones, and sheer discomfort prevented me from doing so.
After 30 minutes or so we arrived at our destination, an island known as 외도 (外島 / Oedo) which means “Outside Island” (as opposed to all the inside islands). Anyhow there was a botanical garden there for us to examine and take pictures of, which we did. Somewhere around the time that I caressed a statue of Venus my anger and grumpiness faded for the most part. The island was pretty nice, except the guy that yelled at me for sitting in a Santa Claus sleigh because it was apparently too dangerous to get into and out of…that guy was an asshole, but I digress. We scoped an island, I handled the man-junk of a replica of Michelangelo’s David, and we took a lot of pictures. Then it was time to head back to the mainland.
We got back on the boat and drove back to land, and the buses. The drive back was a lot calmer, and almost pleasant. By the time we got to the bus, I was ready for lunch…it was 10:00 in the morning. Onto the bus we went and we drove for a few minutes before we stopped at a cliff overlooking the sea. Apparently some commercial was filmed there. I spit off the cliff, because that’s apparently an awesome thing to do. Then 10 minutes later it was back on the bus.
Somehow I managed to fall asleep for about an hour and a half which really helped heal my eyes up. All morning long, the lack of sleep made my eyes feel like they belonged to a mummy. That’s how dry and itchy they were. But that hour and a half really hooked me up with eyes that were not painful. But I thought to myself, “Self, you were just asleep for an hour and a half. What did you miss?”
The answer was, “nothing.” In the hour and a half that I’d been asleep we’d just been on the road, and we continued driving for another hour and a half. A little after 1:00pm we arrived at some random town which was seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and unloaded for lunch. Lunch was slightly more awesome than breakfast had been, but still was nothing to write home about…so I’m not even going to tell you what we ate.
After lunch we got back on the bus and started driving again. “Why did we stop at that hick town? It seemed really pointless to have lunch there,” I said to my wife. “I know…”
So we drove for an hour or so before arriving at our destination, and the thing I’d been looking forward to all day: the wine tunnel! The wine tunnel had been the one thing that was keeping me going. I knew that if I could endure the shitty food, and uncomfortable seats just a little bit, there would be a trip into a wine tunnel. That promise alone helped me make it through…and now I was there.
If I learned one thing on this trip it was never expect anything to be good, because you’ll only get disappointed.
The pictures I had seen of the wine tunnel on the internet made it look awesome. It kind of looked like a dungeon meets romantic cafe meets wine being in there. The reality was far less awesome. There were no nice romatic tables with a candle on it. Hell no, there were rows and rows of white plastic lawn chairs. And somehow, when the romantic cafe part of the wine tunnel vanishes, the tunnel part starts to suck quickly. The floor was dirt, the walls were dirty, and the ceiling was covered some sort of green plastic…mesh, that had…water on it, and…I don’t know what it was for, but it was there, and not nice.
There was a concert there. A Christmas concert. I’ve been been to a lot concerts before. I’ve been to shows in stadiums, shows on the street, shows in basements, and everywhere in between. A tunnel is not a very good place for a concert. The reason is this: the shape of a tunnel makes it so that only the people closest to the stage (about 4 rows) could see anything. Everyone else could kind of hear it (since there was no P.A. system really this too was difficult), but all I could see was the back of some random dude’s head.
The trip at this point had a grade of about D or F, but then someone gave me wine. I knew we would be getting wine, but when I saw the lawn chairs, I half expected to get a paper cup of wine and maybe like 2 crackers. So imagine my surprise when the wine was given to me in an actual wine glass! Also we didn’t get 2 crackers, but plates of crackers and cheese and…DRIED PERSIMMON!!! Now Americans, to my knowledge, don’t really eat a lot of persimmons, but let me tell you: Countrymen! You are missing out! Persimmons are awesome! Go forth and eat them!!
So speaking of persimmons, not only did we get dried persimmons to snack on, but the wine itself was forged…built…brewed…made from persimmons! It tasted pretty good. My wife says that it was deep. It was different from the regular grape kind of wine in both taste and smell, but it was pretty alright…and just pretty. The color was nice.
So Jinhui and I decided to get our money’s worth and we got as many glasses of wine and plates of crackers as we could. Also as other people left, we moved forward to get a look at the stage. The concert was pretty weird. First there was a group that did some classical music, and had an opera singer. I don’t like opera ladies, their voices are too loud and high and make my head (which is made of glass) feel like it’s going to explode. Opera men are not that awesome either, because they try too hard to have a low voice. After the opera singers there was a poetry reading.
Jinhui and I both did not like poetry reading. I thought it was boring. She thought it was depressing. We both thought it was a pain in the ass. Following the poetry slam, a jazz band took the stage! The jazz band played a selection of Christmas tunes: Silver Bells, Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Blue Christmas…Desperado. You know, all the classics!
After the jazz group, the show was over. Jinhui and I bought some persimmon wine, and then it was back on the bus. The tour was over and it was time to go home. The trip home was just okay. We played Tetris…well, Jinhui played Tetris, and I watched some crappy movie about a retarded guy that likes to run. Some four hours later we were back at home. We heard some more pointless clapping and then the tour was over and I was glad.
We learned two important lessons on this tour, the first as I already mentioned was not to get ones hopes up about anything. The second, and perhaps more practical was not to go on group tours anymore. The past two group tours I’ve been on have wasted so much time jackassing around in bus and we ended up not seeing as much as we could have. Anyhow that’s about it. If you want to look at pictures check out my Flickr account.
Well, this evening for Christmas I’m heading off on a cruise and going on a trip into a wine tunnel (韓: 와인터널). No, I’m not sure what a wine tunnel actually is but to quote my wife, “I like wine, and tunnels are alright, so it should be okay.” So you probably will not hear from me until after the Christmas holiday. So I’m going to take this moment to just offer up seasonal greetings and wish all of you out there the best. I hope you all get what you want for Christmas…me? I’m going into a wine tunnel!
Anyhow this wine tunnel adventure appeared out of nowhere on really short notice, so I’m aborting the translation project I was working on for this Christmas season. Basically all you need to know about that is Christmas seals were brought to Korea by a Canadian chap named Sherwood Hall in 1932, and in 1940 the Japanese deported him from the country for being a spy. Anyhow here are the Korean Christmas seals from 1932 up through 1939…Merry Christmas!
Oh, and if you are a member of my family, don’t attempt calling me, since I won’t be home. I’ll give you cats a jingle upon my return.
Some weeks back I mentioned a television taping I attended. On Sunday evening while my wife and I were assembling a puzzle and checking out MTV, the afore mentioned concert was broadcast and while a lot of junk that went down was edited out, my exchange with the lead singer of the group Veil was not, so I was on television.
The very next day was a Monday. As anyone that has lived in Korean can attest, the main form of advertising is not television commercials or print ads in the newspaper, but randomly taping fliers to people’s doors. So one such flier was taped to my door. This particular flier was for the hagwon that my wife and I at one time worked for. I stopped working there sometime in September…my wife somewhat later in November. Imagine my surprise when there we both were in various photos attached to this advertisement. While some of the photos I recall being taken there were several that I am under the impression were Photoshopped and one my wife and I are convinced was taken off her Cyworld page. Neither of us got any kind of compensation for this, but since this is Korean such unauthorized use doesn’t seem to be against the law here. So I guess it’s just one more thing I can add to my resume of awesomeness.
“Hi, I’m Wyatt…teacher / actor / model / awesome dude!”
On the third day of our trip to Jeju, I once again awoke at the asscrack of dawn. We showered, had a cup of coffee and watched some television while we waited for the tour bus to come and pick us up at our hotel. The television was slightly disappointing. Unlike America where a trip across state lines means exposure to some random regional television (commercials and local news stations in particular), a trip to different regions in Korea doesn’t really effect what one sees on television. TV is Jeju was exactly the same as TV in Busan which was exactly the same as TV in Seoul. It’s makes for bland domestic travel, but I seriously digress.
Around 8:30 in the morning, the bus picked us up and we headed off to adventure. The first stop was 용두암 (龍頭岩), which if the 漢字 were to be believed was a large rock shaped like a dragon’s head. As the bus roared along, Jinhui and I partook in some Jeju Milk, which in terms of taste was on par with Seoul Milk (and much better than Busan Milk).
While television might not be that different from place to place, brands of milk (to some extent), and the brands of soju avalible vary a great deal. The 진로 brand seems to be a brand avaliable from coast to coast, but each province seems to have it’s own local brand. In Seoul (and Gyeonggi province) we have 山소주. Busan has C1. In Jeonju I saw Hite brand soju, and in Jeju I saw 한라소주 (and some lower alcohol version which was in a clear bottle). Again I really went off on a tangent here. Back to the awesomeness at hand.
The bus picked up some other travelers and after a short ride we were at 용두암. I quickly learned that either people of yore had much better imaginations than I do, or the effects of weathering had taken their toll on the rock, because I could not for the life of me see a dragon’s head. Anyhow we saw a rock and then we were wisked off to a gift shop for an hour of shopping. At about this time I started to loathe the tour group. I didn’t know why we needed an hour of shopping in one store that had all the same stuff we’d seen everywhere else only like 20% more expensive.
So I was loathing the tour group, but my loathing ceased when we were taken to Elephant Land to see an elephant show. In my youth I had bore witness to an elephant show at the Catskill Game Farm (RIP homie) that featured twirling elephants. As these elephants twirled, they shat, and as they shat all the people in the first few rows screamed in terror. This event was so etched into the minds of my family and myself that it is still brought up in conversation to this day. That’s how awesome it was (we were not in the front row so it truly was awesome)! Anyhow this show was awesome too, though it did not feature a single shitting elephant. What it did feature were a bunch of elephants doing decidedly non-elephant like junk. They painted. They went bowling. They stood upon the asses of the audience members. They came into the audience to get bananas and cash…kind of like tusked strippers at a gentlemen’s club. And then there was the basketball game!
The b-ball game featured elephants slam dunkin’ the rock, drainin’ 3s, and (insert another early 90s basketball related slogan that probably appeared in the game NBA Jams here). So the elephants were basically being Jimmy Jump when suddenly one of the elephants went down to the ground. The music stopped and the announcer started talking to the boss of Elephant Land.
“What the shit’s going on here?” I thought to myself, “Is this for real?”
After all that, we got our pictures taken with elephants, but that was not the end of our dealings with dirty animals…not by a long shot!
I read of a Korean saying that translated to something like, “If you have a son send him to Seoul. If you have a horse, send it to Jeju.” I don’t really know what that means, but a lot of dudes must have bought into the line since there were tons of horses in Jeju…and following the elephant show we were going to a dude ranch to ride some!
After a brief bus ride we were at the ranch, but we couldn’t just jump on some horses and start playing cowboys or Saratoga Race Course. No, first we had to but on some rediculous gear. The gear in question consisted of a hat that was more a Crocodile Dundee hat than a cowboy hat, a red vest, and some boots that looked a lot like the boots I had to wear during my wedding ceremony. Once geared up, it was time to ride.
I have some horseback riding experience from my teenage years, and the thing that stuck with me all this time was that horseback riding hurts one’s nuts. This second trip confirmed this preconcieved notion. That being said, aside from the painful nuts, horseback riding was really fun…oh except for when the horse Jinhui was riding decided that it would be totally awesome to have gas and then take a shit while my horse was right behind it. But other than that it was fun.
And then we had some lunch. Lunch was all you could eat 흑돼지 or black pig (aka “shit pig”) and 막걸리 (makkoli…a type of liquor). AWESOME!!! Free booze is always a plus. As for the 흑돼지 it didn’t taste all that different from regular pork. Though it did look like it could use a shave. Seriously that meat had a five o’clock shadow!
Following lunch we went to a cave. I had not been inside a cave or cavern or any manner of underground rock formation since my fourth grade class went on a field trip to Howe Caverns. This cave was about as intense as that (read as not very intense, but fairly awesome). Unlike Howe Caverns, this cave did not have any stalactites or stalagmites. Nor were there any bats. There was a Buddha statue. It was pretty okay. Also there was a park located around the cave that had cacti and palm trees. We took some pictures.
Then we went to a cliff where there was a lighthouse, a set from the television drama All In, the sea, and some seemingly ownerless horses. After some photos here and a quick stop at a seaside seafood restaurant it was back to the airport and farewell to Jeju.
The trip home was uneventful save for the fact that at security I got stopped and asked if I had a knife in my bag. I told them I didn’t and was asked to open a pocket in my bag where I was surprised to find that I did indeed have a knife in my bag. The knife, which had apparently been left in the bag the last time he went mountain climbing, had been in my bag the entire trip unknown to anyone (apparently including the security personel at Kimpo Airport). Anyhow the knife wasn’t a big issue. They took it away from me and I apologized and we continued on. The corkscrew in my wife’s bag was apparently less of a security threat than a knife with a three inch blade and was allowed through the baggage check without incident.
Otherwise the trip home was uneventful. We waited around for an hour or so before we got on the plane and went home. Oh wait! I forgot about the guy that was staggering drunk before boarding the plane. When he got on, I heard one of the stewardesses phone someone to alert then that “a seriously drunk man just got on,” and to “be advised.” Aside from reeking of booze as I walked past him the drunk guy caused no problems that I could see.
So an hour after take off we were back in Seoul, and then it was another hour before we were back home and in bed. In conclusion if you want to see pictures of day three of my trip to Jeju (complete with some captions), the check this link out. If you do not wish to see pictures than have a nice day, we’ll see you next time!
On the first full day in Jeju, I awoke at the crack of dawn…before even the alarm clock set for way too early in the morning was supposed to go off. I don’t know about all of you in TV land, but this is a normal thing for me both when traveling and on the eve of my travels. Once awake I got a shower going on and then prepared an outstanding breakfast of leftover Italian food and cup ramen…oh and coffee too, but actually Jinhui made the coffee, not me, and I guess technically I didn’t make the pizza either since I just heated it up, but I did so without an oven or microwave oven for that matter so that’s gotta count for something.
Moving on, starting on this day Jinhui and I were going to be traveling as part of a tour group. So at early o’clock in the morning the tour bus came to our hotel and picked us up. From this point on the entire trip became a lot like the Magical Mystery Tour, only I was the walrus and there were a lot more newlyweds. Once all these couples had been picked up we headed off on our adventure.
The first stop of the day was 신비의도로 (The Road of Mystery) or as my wife and countless other people on the tour referred to it, 도깨비도로 (Goblin Road). Technically we didn’t really even stop. The gimmick of this site is that it’s a hill that things roll up as opposed to down. So the bus driver turned off the engine, but the bus in neutral and we rolled up a hill. It was kind of weird, but not as awesome as if there had been actual goblins about. At the end of the Road of Mystery, the bus door opened and some middle aged lady jumped on and grabbed the microphone in the front.
At first this kind of freaked me out since I had no idea who she was, and up until this point the bus driver had been serving as the tour guide, but apparently this lady was the real guide and the other dude was just a driver who apparently was super knowledgeable about roads and goblins so he got to be the tour guide for that segment. With the real tour guide now on board we headed to some venue to see some kind of circus show at 10:00 in the morning. “A circus at 10? What the deuce?”
So anyhow we saw the most randomest circus ever. There were no animals, but a lot of acrobats and people swinging on stuff that was hanging from the ceiling. People swung on long red ribbons, and people swung on metal deals, and they swung on other people…it was out of control. There was also a lady that did hula hoop with many hula hoops! She had at least 8 hula hoops going at one time with various different parts of her body! It was a little bit amazing since I can barely do one hula hoop with my waist and here was this lady doing many hula hoops with various different parts of her body. The hula hoop lady and people swinging around and also the Chinese girls that should have been in school but instead were in Jeju doing tricks with paper lanterns were all pretty good, but the most excellent of excellent adventures were the motorcycle guys.
“Motorcycle guys?”
Yes, motorcycle guys. This event had not been introduced on the tour bus as a circus, but rather as a motorcycle show show show (the tour guide had repeated the word “show” three times when telling us about it), so when we arrived I half expected some guys on dirt bikes popping wheelies and doing things one might find in the game Excite Bike. Howdy was I wrong!
No wheelies were popped, but seven men on motorcycles got into a giant metal sphere and raced around like madmen…or maybe Mad Max. Anyhow the awesomeness is just too awesome for me to attempt to describe with either English or Korean or any language of the mortals. I guess it’s a lot like the concept of Tao in that there’s no way for normal people to talk about it. Or something…awesome! So instead of writing it was awesome a bunch of times, check it out yourself!
Now I’m well aware that there are fewer than seven mens inside the ball in the video, but the stunts they did when they were seven strong were not as amazing (though the fact that there were seven men and seven motorcycles in the ball was amazing on it’s own) as the moves they did when there were less than seven mens…so that’s the video I elected to post.
Anywho, after the motorcycle show we got on the bus again and drove again until we arrived at a park filled with minautre models of famous monuments. So in an hour I was able to take pictures infront of The Great Wall of China, The Effiel Tower, and the pyramids. It was kind of funny, but my wife said that there was a similar park in Seoul that had a better set up so it was easier to take more realistic looking photos. This park was good if you wanted to take pictures that made you look like some sort of Godzilla enemy, which is pretty much what I am! Also there were statues of cosmonauts and football players and the seven dwarves, so that was there too. At this park we were also given some manner of free lunch which was buffet style Korean food, meaning there was rice and kimchi and soup made of seaweed and some other stuff too.
Following lunch we boarded the bus and headed off to a tangerine farm. Jeju-do is pretty famous for citrus fruit, particularly tangerines, so apparently a trip to a tangerine farm is a must for every tour group to Jeju-do. I was a little less than enthralled since I don’t really care all that much about where fruit comes from and care about it even less when the tour becomes a sales pitch for some sort of oriental medicine. But this is life in a guided tour…so I held my tounge, ate free tangerines, and took some pictures in an orchard.
After the boring orchard we got back on a bus and drove to a park where we saw a waterfall. It was pretty nice, but I was more impressed with the presence of phonebooths shaped like 돌하르방. Actually I take that back the waterfall was more awesome than the phonebooths, but the phonebooths were pretty radical.
With our time at the waterfall behind us we got back on the bus and literally drove 300 meters before we were made to disembark and get on a boat. This boat was pretty similar to the boat that goes up and down the Han River in Seoul, only instead of going up and down a river it went out to sea. And instead of getting to see a lot of bridges and building we got to see a lot of small islands that were made out of volcanoes. The cruise was pretty decent, and the dude (he wasn’t a sea captain, but he had a sea captain uniform on) that told us what we were looking at was a hoot (and yes, I just used to phrase “a hoot” to describe a humorous person inspite of the fact that I was not born in the 1930s). So that happened.
Then we drove to some hotel where they filmed a scene in the movie 쉬리. There was also a beach there and some other junk like palm trees and an ice skating rink. Suddenly it was super dark so we couldn’t take good pictures anymore. At this point the tour was over for the day. We were planning on going to place called Love Land without the tour group, but it suddenly started raining like a mofo, so we went back to the hotel and ordered Chinese food and drank wine.
Here ends the adventures that transpired on the second day. If you want to see pictures, then click this link that is located here.
Korea has MTV. I’m not talking about M-net or KMTV…I’m talking straight up MTV, and the other day I went to their studios to see a concert. A concert that was filmed to be put on television. Also it was free and they gave me beer, but I’m really getting ahead of myself here now aren’t I? Let’s be backtracking…pistol packing and get it going on!
Last weekend I took Jinhui to her first rock concert which was kind of like My First Sony only not as red or as plastic. Inspite of the lack of red plastic, Jinhui really enjoyed the rock show and wanted to go rock out again. The group she most wanted to see? Jaurim! And as chance would have it, a meer five days later Jaurim was putting on a show at MTV Studio, and it was free, and since it was sponsored by Budweiser there was free beer as well. “Cool! Let’s rock it like a robot!” was pretty much my response.
And that’s just what we did! We got there early since it was free and there were a limited number of tickets. So we grabbed our tickets and then had dinner at Kimbab Nara (김밥나라) or Kimbab Cheonguk (김밥천국) and did word search puzzles. Finally it was time to go and rock out and get recorded doing so.
This was the first time I’d ever been to something being recorded for television save for that time that my journalism class in high school went to the local NBC station to see the news at noon get recorded, but that was very different. Before any rocking commenced a producer came out on the stage and gave us some rules. Photos were okay, but flashes were not since sometimes flashes cause people to make zombie faces which makes for poor television. We had to watch out for our personal belongs. And I think that was about it, but I wasn’t really paying attention since I just wanted to rock! Then it was time!
Heritage
This was a band that prior to this event I’d never heard of. When they first hit the stage I noticed that there was a lack of a singer. “Ah…this must be due to the fact that this is being taped for television. The singer’s probably going to come out when they start filming,” I thought to myself. And I was right…kind of. The singer did come out when the filming began, only they weren’t one singer there were seven of them. That’s right ladies and gentlemen a group with seven singers that were not a boy or girl group. This group instead hijacked soul, funk, gospel, and from time to time hip-hop in an effort to get the party started. I had a couple problems with them though. First of all the one dude sounded like he was trying to be James Brown except when he sounded like Heavy D from Heavy D and the Boys. Everyone else sang as though there were a member of MC Hammer’s posse on the song, “Don’t Pass Me By.” Heritage, you might have had a live band and a girl with a head shaped like a lion, but you can’t fool me into thinking shoddy covers of “What’s Goin’ On” make you a real soul group!
진희曰: They were too confusing. There were so many singers I didn’t know where to look. Also I couldn’t tell who was singing what so I didn’t know who was a good singer and who was bad.
Side-B
I thought that I’d never heard of this group either, but apparently in the spring of 2005 I included them in a rant about how bad braids look on white people and Asian people. At this point I would like to ammend said 2005 article by stating that Side-B may in fact have horrible hair but they sure know how to rock the party. Also I want to add that it’s really difficult to try and take pictures of rappers while they are performing. At least with a rock band they are attached to instruments that impede their ability to move quickly. These guys were like superballs…flying and jumping all over the place. Jesus God Damn it was difficult to take pictures! But that’s alright, I was rocking out anyway!
진희曰: They were out of control.
Veil
Veil was another group that I truly had never heard of, but apparently everyone else in attendance had since they were all weilding Veil hand towels (as a quick sidebar this seems to be a common item for Korean bands to sell. I have personally seen No Brain towels, Crying Nut towels, and now Veil towels, but never in my 23 years of dwelling in the US did I see any band selling towels. There are no Les Savy Fav or Pearl Jam towels). Anyhow I really rocked out on a tangent there. Veil were a pretty decent rock and roll combo. Basically there were the group Transfixion (aka pretty boy rockers) only they had a rapper also. It was the oddest form of rap-rock or rock-rap I’d ever heard in my life, but somehow it was a little bit awesome. Also during the show the singer that wasn’t a rapper attempted to explain what Veil stood for. It was apparently “Various Elements In Life,” or something akin to that which he said in English which sounded like he had marbles in his mouth. He than spotted me in the crowd and asked me if I could understand. I said I could…though in reality I couldn’t until the rapper (who I’m pretty sure either lived or studied) in an English speaking country explained it again. Luckily the cameramen all recorded this exchange increasing my chances of appearing on television about 48.2%. Radical!!!
We later discovered that the singers in Veil had a secret past which kind of explained their level of fame. The singing guy was apparently a former teen idol dance singing in the early 1990s (진희曰: 1992) and the rapper was a one time member of Koyote who apparently got into some drug related trouble and was sacked from the group. Anyhow that’s why they were famous, but we didn’t know it at the time.
진희曰: They are fun to watch. It was interesting: rap and rock…rap-rock! I’ve never seen that. I wish I got a stick or towel or something that they threw after the show. I almost got a sticker but someone took it. I was scared. (Wyatt 曰: There was some middle aged 아저씨 that was way to into Veil and would throw himself into the crowd of female fans to snag stickers. This was the guy that got the sticker 진희 attempted to grab.)
Jaurim
Apparently the members of Jaurim have rocking out gear, since they were all sporting the same gear that they had worn to the concert some 5 days before. Also I am now under the impression that Jaurim’s singer, Kim Yuna (김윤아) must be told that she is pretty before they can start rocking…at least that’s what the mens in the audience would leave me to believe. As soon as she come out it was all, “오~아! 예쁘다!” (Wo~ah! She’s beautiful!) In all honesty she’s good looking, but she doesn’t need to be told that. Pretty girls already know they’re pretty and telling them so only gives them a swelled head, like Peter Brady in that episode of the Brady Bunch where he saves some kid from getting crushed in a toy store and then gets a trampoline and assorted other junk…including a swelled head! What was I talking about? Oh yes, rock and roll!
So Jaurim played some rock and roll jams. Most of the tunes they played were off their latest album, which makes sense since this was a televised event and they probably wanted to use it to oh I dunno…promote the fact that they have a new album. Anyhow new songs sounded really good. That Kim Yuna sure knows how to sing and jump while wearing high heels! Also do you remember “Freebird?” Did you ever see Lyyard Skynyrd on VH1 behind the music? Remember the part where they talk about “Freebird” having a triple guitar attack? Yeah?! Well Jaurim at one point had a triple keyboard attack which was almost as bad ass.
진희曰: She had the same clothes and you (Wyatt) wanted to yell that, but I stopped you. That’s not a good move.
With Jaurim finished, so was the show. We exited the building and again were handed free Budweiser (thanks dudes!) and then headed home. Anyhow it was taped and will probably air sometime soon on MTV in Korea. If you happen upon the True Music Live show on MTV featuring any of the bands mentioned above, keep your eyes peeled. I’m the white guy in a yellow sweatshirt. And in the meantime if you want to look at pictures of rap rock and roll, check out these pictures here at this site. (link)
On Wednesday November 29, 2006in the year of our lord Jinhui and I went to the zoo and saw all kinds of totally awesome animals. Additionally we saw some not so awesome animals too, but I didn’t take any pictures of them…only the awesome ones. These are the pictures of the awesome animals.
Of all the totally radical animals that we saw on this day (and did we see some radical animals believe you me) the two animals which were the most of them awesome were two animals that I had never heard of prior to this trip to the zoo. These animals were called: binturong and caracal respectively. Basically the existance of these two animals proved that there is something to the entire 음 and 양 (yin and yang for the rest of the world) concept. The binturong (this link was selected simply because the site is called Lioncrusher…which pretty much is totally awesome) was the most chillax animal that I have ever seen in my life. Basically the thing looks rediculous and was chilling out on some jungle gym deal, when I pointed at it and laughed and pretty much yelled, “You look redankulous binturong!” What did the binturong do? Get all pissed off and try to throw down on me? Hell no! The binturong jumped off his jungle gym and came up to the bars and was all like, “Check me out…I’m the fuckin’ binturong!” That was cool as him. His face was rediculous and he was a chill dude. I would have liked to have a brew with him, but I didn’t. Anyhow binturong is cool and relaxed and apparently smells like popcorn…but I don’t really know about that since I didn’t sniff him. Anyhow…
If the binturong was the chillest animal ever, the caracal was the ragin’-est. This dude would get totally pissed off about nothing. I didn’t laugh at his face or anything and he started screaming at me and junk. You don’t believe me? Check out this out of control footage!
He was all like “Heeeeest! Heeeeeest!” Asshole! Nah, I take that back. He was cool too, but in a totally different way. I’d like to drink some brews with binturong, but if I was in a street fight with weapons I would totally want caracal to have my back.
Anyhow this writing is getting less than awesome because I still have a stupid cast on my right hand. So I’m calling it quits now. Look at the pictures if you want to look at other awesome animals like elephants and tigers and white tigers and ostriches and stuff like that.
Married life is awesome. I always have someone to talk to. Housework is divided evenly and therefore takes much less time. The menu choices regarding home cooked meals increased ten-fold. But there was one thing I missed, and that was rock and roll shows. It wasn’t really so much that they were outlawed or declared off-limits, but with my marriage and subsequent move out of Seoul, I kind of stopped going to rock concerts. That all changed this past weekend when Jinhui and I trekked to Jamshil to bear witness to the 2006 Bud Rock Concert. This was the first concert we attended together and well…her first concert period so this time around instead of doing this thing old school I’m going to write up my take on the bands and then offer up some piece of information my wife proclaimed about each group. Since there were nine bands at this bad boy, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Let’s take it away!
First things first. We arrived at the Olympic Park (where this event was going down) and quickly encountered mobs of middle school girls. Apparently at another stadium in the park the Korean version of the MTV music awards were being held (the M-net Awards if you want me to get all technical and junk), and due to this gangs of middle school girls with different colored balloons had congregated to scream at the appropriate time…only they didn’t get to go into the arena because it was already filled with other girls…so they sat outside on the grass and screamed while watching the event on a big television on the side of a truck. I don’t really know why I am mentioning this let’s get on with the rocking and the rolling.
Crying Nut
Crying Nut was the first band of the evening which I thought was pretty odd, since they were like the second or third biggest band performing that night in terms of popularity. But who am I to say what band should come out at what time? Anyhow they played a few songs off their new album (an album which I own yet didn’t listen to much) and then closed out there set with the two songs I knew they’d play: “밤이 깊었네” and “말달리자.” They were pretty outstanding if simply for the fact that the bass player was wearing a tuxedo. He totally looked like he was going to the prom after they finished their set…which might have been the reason they went on first…and were chugging Budweisers.
진희曰: They were really fun. (It should be noted that this was one of two bands she had actually heard prior to the event…and she actually knew several of their songs).
Transfixion
I’d never seen or heard of Transfixion prior to this concert and I know why. They are kind of a hair metal band…or visual kei or some other genre of rock music that basically boils down to pretty boys with way too much makeup with wailing vocals and guitars. Now I’m going to be honest and say they didn’t suck that much. The lead singer (who I thought was only partially Korea…though later investigation disproved my theory) had some decent rock dude moves. He had the Axl Rose spins down. He mastered Steven Tyler-esque mic stand twirling. And he even had that Jim Morrison / Kurt Cobain detached rock star thing where he never spoke and left introducing the songs to the bass player. So what else was there to say about these guys? Oh! They did a cover of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.” And the bassist had an awesome fro. It was so rocking he could have easily joined At The Drive-In back in the day.
진희曰: The lead singer’s face was the only one they put on the screen. He looks like a clown / mime.
Super Kidd
This was another band I’d never heard of, but about 30 seconds into their set I realized that they would have been the opening act had this show taken place in the United States. I couldn’t even begin to describe the weirdness that was Super Kidd. For starters they all came out in matching uniforms: cargo shorts and a blue t-shirt with a modified Superman logo (use your imagination as to how it was modified). They also had two singers or rappers or guys with a gym coach’s whistle and a megaphone. The drummer only played disco beats. They did syncronized dance moves. And the guitar players would randomly play Van Halen style wailing guitar solos. They were a total party band…kind of like the Beastie Boys before they learned that there was a place in the world called Tibet and got really old looking. Wow I did manage to describe them. They were awesome. I want to go see them again.
진희曰: I thought they were DJ Doc at first…then I thought maybe DJ Doc’s brothers. They were fun though.
Nell
It was kind of good that Nell came on after Super Kidd because my ears need to relax a little. Nell apparently released a new album in which they continued to get more mellow (or at least that’s what the tunes they elected to play would have me believe), which like I said was not a bad thing at the time. I for one miss the Nell that from time to time would rock out, but the world needs mellow rock jams as well.
진희曰: He sings really well, but they look like normal guys. Their clothes are not outstanding. Also that guy (bass player) talked too much about stupid things like the weather.
Tacopy
I’ve heard some Tacopy jams before since they show up on pretty much every punk compilation CD I own, but for whatever reason I never really got into them. Their tunes aren’t bad, but they aren’t really anything special either. Tacopy (or at least the Tacopy I’ve heard) rock out doing the same skate punk countless other bands do, and many other bands do better. Still after Nell slowed things down it was good to have someone rev it back up again.
진희曰: He (the guitarist) was good.
Deli Spice
Deli Spice hit the stage and were all business. I seriously don’t think any of them talked at all. They just power slammed it through some indie pop jams and then were out of there. They played the songs everyone knew they would and that was good enough for the audience.
진희曰: They were ok.
Jaurim
Jaurim was next, and they were awesome. For starters the lead singer, 김유나 (Kim Yuna) was beautiful or at least she was according to various audience members of both sexes. Also the set was tight. With nine bands everyone was doing pretty truncated sets, so there wasn’t a lot of room to mess around. They rocked out and rocked it out hard. My wife did pogoing and threw up the rock hands during it. It was awesome!
진희曰: Jaurim was my favorite! (This was the other group she knew of, and in this case was a group she actually liked as opposed to just being familiar with.)
Peterpan Complex
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen this band now. Maybe four or five, and each time they’re awesome. Much like Nell, Peterpan Complex have a new album I am less than familiar with and on this night decided their whole set was going to be composed of songs off this new album. The tunes were rocking and I now must go purchase their new album…even though it is called I Am A Beautiful Man. A lot of critics, and probably me as well, compare Peterpan Complex to Radiohead which makes the next band that came on even more out of control. But first a word from my wife.
진희曰: They look so poor. Look at their clothes.
Powerman 5000
That’s right kids! Korean Radiohead was followed by Powerman 5000! Now I knew Powerman 5000 was going to perform at this event, but the entire time leading up to them taking the stage, I was confusing them with another band of that ilk: Static X, so when Powerman 5000 came out I was all like, “Oh…Powerman 5000!” Besides learning the true identity of Powerman 5000, I also learned that some Korean people need some pointers in how to deal with American rock musicians. So allow me to help.
First off if the singer is a male and you are a male, it’s best not to yell, “I love you (insert rock singer’s name here)!” Something like, “(Rock singer’s name)! You rock!” is probably a safer bet. Secondly it is devil horns not the American sign language sign for “I Love You” when dealing with heavy metal or hard rock bands. If these two symbols are too difficult to remember, a simple fist in the air is good enough. This concludes the how to rock lesson for the day.
This seems like as good a time as any to be completely and totally honest.
I’m not a Powerman 5000 fan. And unlike some of their other hipster credibility ruining late 90s nu-metal brethern I can say with 100% honest I have not even downloaded one of their songs. But. But when they hit the stage I was totally into it and somehow I knew like a good 50% of the songs they played. Again it was a case of, “Ah…Powerman 5000!” I was digging it. There was fire. The lead singer was ordering us to “Fuck it up!” The bass player was giving nods of approval in my general direction. And there was an explosion and streams came shooting out of the ceiling. It was unsane! And then it was over. Powerman 5000 exited the stage and we all began exiting the building.
진희曰: He has really good charisma. Even though he can’t speak Korean and many people here can’t speak English he made everyone enjoy the show.
Perhaps the most awesome thing about this show was the fact that because it was sponsored by Budweiser, we were handed a can of brew as we departed the venue. Kind of like those goody bags you used to get at birthday parties, but instead of having a pack of Batman trading cards and Jolly Rancher candies this goody bag was a can of beer , and beer trumps even Jolly Ranchers and Batman. Anyhow that’s pretty much the end of this rock and roll adventure. If you want to see more pictures, you can click the link here and look at pictures of bands.
The following items are now avalible for sale by one Wyatt:
Sony Cyber-shot Camera (DSC-T1)
Assorted Board Games (Monopoly, Scrabble, Pictonary Jr.)
Voltage Coverter (Plug in any American, Canadian, or Japanese appliances!!!)
Email me at wdunn220&yahoo.com with your offer if you are interested in any of the items (replace & with @). Free delivery to people residing in Seoul or Bundang (aka I’ll ride a bus or subway and meet you in the venue of your choice).
The other day I saw a ton of really insane stuff. First, while sitting on a bus stuck in traffic, I saw a flat bed truck. On the back of that truck was a huge, white Converse All Star sneaker roughly the size of your average S.U.V.
As I got off the bus I saw the most wild traffic accident ever. A truck, which had been carrying cases of soju had gone around a corner too quickly causing the load (of soju bottles) to fall out of the truck and onto the street. Part of me wanted to run out there like Homer in that Simpsons episode when he finds a turned over sugar truck, and tell the guys, “You go get help! I’ll stay here and protect the soju!” But in reality all I could do was kick myself for leaving my camera at home.
So I’m turning it over to you. What did you see / do on a day when you forgot your camera?
On Sunday evening, Jinhui and I traveled to Seoul to witness the 8th annual Seoul Drum Festival. We had gone together last year, and had enjoyed ourselves greatly. We were therefore looking forward to seeing it again. So after a quick dinner at Lotteria, we hopped on a bus and head for Seoul.
Last year, the event was held on the grounds of City Hall, which was pretty decent. This year the event was held at Kyunghui Palace (경희궁), and I for one was not please with the change. The seating at Kyunghui Palace wasn’t as awesome, and in addition the stage seemed to be much lower than the stage from the year before. This made things like seeing what was happening or taking photographs a little bit difficult.
Anyhow, my gripes about venue changes aside, we had an awesome time. Jinhui and I had some beers and saw six percussion groups (or teams as they were refered to as in Korean). Now in the style of my rock show reports of old, I’ll give you a rundown of exactly what it was that we saw.
First up was a group called New Dimension from Belgium. New Dimension were one of those percussion groups that rocked out on trash cans and chairs as opposed to actual drums. While they put on a decent show, I’m kind of over the trash as a percussion instrument gimmic…I saw STOMP and Skeleton Key do the same kind of junk like 10 plus years ago. Do we really still need to be doing to garbage can thing? Anyhow New Dimension, if you want to rock out on trash at least rock out on some unique trash that others haven’t already done to death. Oh and one other thing, while I was watching this group perform, I couldn’t help but wonder if they brought their trash cans and chairs with them or if they picked them up when they got here.
Following New Dimension was the group Jamstick from Korea. Jamstick rocked out on all sorts of drums, xylophones, and at one point crash helmets. They also had a keyboardist that accompanied their drumming. I kind of liked Jamstick mainly due to the fact that they made outstanding use of xylophones and / or glockenspiels, both of which are excellent instruments.
Unfortunately Jamstick fell into the trap so many Korean musicians (indie rock bands, pop stars, rappers) seem prone to fall into: incredibly longwinded explanations between songs. Maybe this is because I grew up with anti-showmen like Kurt Cobain and that dude from Stone Temple Pilots, but I find these verbose monologues to be tedious and pretty much ruin the flow of the entire set. But enough ranting, they played “Devil In A Blue Dress” as a marching band so they were pretty alright in my book.
Next up was the band, Safara, from Senegal. These dudes (and ladies) were awesome in all kinds of ways. For starters everyone in the group was sporting face paint and robes, which made them look way more awesome then guys that took the stage in black t-shirts. Secondly they had these two ladies who busted out the most insane dance moves the entire time. These women were rocking the kind of moves you’d see in a film featuring “witchdoctors,” and it was totally awesome! And as a quick aside, one of the dancing women from Senegal was white, which at first struck me as odd, but in reality isn’t any weirder than Seo Taiji’s white drummer…or me for that matter. Safara were also the only group of the evening to feature singing which was pretty awesome. But the thing that was the most awesome about Safara was the fact that they had the most phallic looking instrument I’ve ever seen in my life. Awesome!
Following Safara was a Korean group known as Drumcat. Drumcat were pretty decent, but they probably would have been better if I weren’t a married man that had to feign complete and utter disinterest in the fact that Drumcat consisted of six sexy ladies in tight pants pounding drums and rocking out. And oh how they rocked out! I mean they did a cover of “Du Hast” for crying out loud (here by cover I mean that the song played over the PA and the ladies smashed big ass drums during it)…and they had pyro! If I had to complain about something I guess it would have to be the fact that they all had really bad 1970’s shag haircuts. Yet even with that massive disadvantage they still managed to look hot.
Next up was the Korean group 하타 (Hata). These people took traditional Korean percussion instruments (including that huge ass drum) and mixed them with silver jumpsuits and big plastic hazardous waste drums. I guess they were pretty ok, if only for the silver jumpsuits and the use of that huge drum (see the photo at right). As a quick aside, when they hit that thing you can feel it in your guts…it’s that deep! Anyhow, like New Dimension, I found their choice in garbage to hit kind of boring. Dudes, there’s other garbage in the world!
The final group of the evening was 풍장21 (Poongjang 21). v 풍장21 was your standard issue 농악 (nogak…aka farmer’s music) group. I’ve seen this kind of group so many times in my three plus years of living here that I’m kind of bored of it. I mean the first time I saw this kind of band I thought they were awesome, and I still think that it is awesome, but it’s got to be totally awesome for me to get into it. These guy were alright, but they weren’t awesome to the point that I wanted to get up and do some ass-shaking dance moves. However for some reason the only thing I am able to take decent pictures of is 농악, so of the pictures I took that evening, 70% of the good ones were of this group.
Anyhow with the drumming done for the evening, we got on the bus and headed home again. It was a nice event, even if we were stuck sitting behind some dirty hippies.
Click here for photos (if you care about crap like that).
This is the Chuseok Redux, you’re sitting in a jazz club wearing a beret. Oh wait, that’s the Slow Jam Redux…the Chuseok holiday wrap up looks more like this:
Wednesday, the day before Chuseok, was spent making songpyeon (송편). The early stages of songpyeon construction are a lot like the early stages of bread making, only like 100 times stickier. That dough has the consistance of gum, and I now understand why people from the times of yore used a big ass hammer to make this shit. Anyhow we made an assortment of songpyeon in both green and white. I was personally in charge of the chestnut filled ones. We made the green ones first, and man were mine ugly. They were huge, cancerous behemoth looking pieces of crap, but I leveled up quickly, and by the time we made the white ones, mine were indistinguishable from the ones the seasoned veterans were making.
Other junk that happened on Wednesday involved me riding a bike around my immediate area attempting to score some sort of paper that was needed for ancestral memorial rites to no avail. Also my wife (along with my sister-in-law, and mother-in-law) cooked a lot of other non-songpyeon type food stuffs.
The following morning at way too early o’clock, I was roused from my slumber to clean up the house, and set the table so that Chuseok could commence. With such things taken care of, it was time for Chuseok related festivities, which were pretty much the same as Lunar New Year related festivities, only instead of eating rice cake soup we ate taro soup. Guests came to our house, chowed down on some food and drank some brews, and then they headed back from wence they came.
After quickly cleaning up our homestead we headed out to Jinhui’s grandfather’s house (her mother’s father), where since she was technically no longer part of the clan didn’t have to do any work. Me, being a man, only had to drink soju and eat food, so I did that. We then went with a totally awesome posse that included three random kindergarten students, some old Korean mens, me and my in-laws, and one of Jinhui’s cousins who totally looked like he could kick some ass (the dude was huge…like Hulk Hogan sized arms and junk). There we offered dried fish and poured one out for our dead homies our deceased ancestors.
With that out of the way we headed home, where I promptly fell asleep. It was 5:00 in the evening. At 10:00 Jinhui (who apparently had fallen asleep in the living room), and I both woke up and for the next 4 hours watched a ton of really random junk on TV and ate some ice cream. All in all it was a decent day, but I’m glad for Jinhui’s sake that this was probably her last Chuseok. I really feel bad for women on these holidays. All day long they cook and clean, with few chances to rest. Quelle domage! Anyhow that’s pretty much the end of my poorly written Chuseok related rant. There’s not really much else to say. Oh, I wore a hanbok (한복) because I own one and figured Chuseok would be a good excuse to take it out of the closet. Really now, this is the end. There is nothing else for me to say that I can think of at this time. But probably if someone leaves a comment I will remember more anecdotes of the events of the day. So…I’m finished now.
Perhaps the greatest thing about living in a foreign country were holidays I had absolutely no vested interest in. Prior to getting married, my Chuseok holiday consisted of little more than getting a bunch of beer and instant food the weekend before the holiday and then rocking it like a viking with beer, chips, and crappy movies until the holiday was over. Now that I’m married, I thought that this tradition would have to die. Apparently I was wrong.
The time is yesterday morning at roughly 9:30. My wife and I are sitting on the couch in the living room watching some manner of crappy television, when she turns to me and says, “I want to have some of that wine.” She had gotten two bottles of wine as a Chuseok gift set from her place of employment.
“Alright, we can have some later today,” I reply.
“How about now?”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. We cracked that bad boy open and spent the day drinking and watching music videos from our youth. I learned a lot about H.O.T. and Seo Taiji. Like the fact that the Seo Taiji song, “Come Back Home,” is the exact same song as Cypress Hill’s “Insane In The Brain.” I also learned that my wife prefers Pearl Jam to Nirvana regarding songs of my youth.
Anywho after a morning and afternoon spent stinkin’ and drinkin’, when evening rolled around we headed into Seoul for a little shopping. We purchased a jewlery box, two stone bowls, and some everyday use chopstick and spoon set. We grabbed some dinner and then got on a bus headed back home where we called it a night.
On Sunday morning, the family and I piled into my father-in-law’s automobile and we drove off to family obligation part 2 (part 1 being Saturday’s trip to Daejeon). The second part of this past weekend’s family obligations was some sort of meet and greet luncheon in which my clan offically met my sister-in-law’s fiance’s clan (Cripes that was a mouthful…or since I am typing, a fistful).
Anywho, we were at a restaurant in Jamshil known as 龍水山 (용수산) when we met the fiance’s family. Now, I have no real problem with her fiance. I mean he’s a nice enough guy. Hell he gave be a case of Heineken for my birthday! But, if I were a woman, and not married, but still retained all my personality traits, I wouldn’t want to date / marry the dude. He’s a little boring. Having a conversation with him is kind of like pulling teeth.
And now I know why. The meeting took about three hours, and in that time I don’t think his father said a single word. His brother didn’t either. His sister talked a little bit, but it was usually under her breath, and kind of creepy…like a witch or that chick in The Exorcist. She scared me. His mom was alright; probably the most outgoing, but still on the quite side.
Prior to leaving that morning, I had recieved my marching orders like everyone else in our platoon, but I had a special top secret mission, and that was: “Don’t make an ass of yourself.” Sitting there in the opening hours minutes, was pure torture. I wanted to jump up on the table and do the Charleston, or attempt to get the entire restaurant to join me in a musical number (hey it happens in musicals all the time), anything to destroy that dreadfully awkward silence.
You know that kind of silence that is unsettling? Yeah, we had that going on. Luckily my father-in-law has the gift of gab. He’ll talk up anyone about anything at anytime. Unfortunately there were a lot of one word responses, and even the most talkative person can’t do much with that…so he started talking to me. I shot my wife a look, “Is this okay? Can I respond to him?” I didn’t wait for her to wave me on to third. I saw an end to the dreadful silence and went for it.
Luckily at this point food arrived. And man did it arrive! I’ve lived in this country more than 3 years now, and at this particular restaurant I had eaten roughly 3 out of the countless plates of food we were served. For you see, this restaurant served us traditional palace cuisine. Hell yeah dudes, I ate like a king, and oh was it good! I’m not a real artsy guy, especially when it comes to food, so long as it tastes good, but this food not only tasted awesome, it looked fantastic as well.
I can’t really remember every single dish that was served and due to the nature of the event I didn’t really think it was appropriate to whip out a camera and be all like, “Dudes hold on a second! I wanna take a picture of this lotus flower wrapped sushi!” So I’m going to attempt to recall exactly what it was that I ate, from my memory alone…and my mind is not exactly like a steel trap.
I know there was 죽, and the aforementioned sushi that made use of lotus flowers. For me though, the standout dish was 신선로 (shinseolo) primarily due to the awesomeness of the dish in which it was served. Other foodstuffs served that day included rice with 팥 (sweet red beans) cooked in a lotus leaf, 구절판 (gujeolpan), 불고기 (bulgogi), and 잡채 (japchae). For dessert, we were served some 떡 (ddeok) as well as some 약과 (yakgwa) and a cup of 복분자차 (bokbunjacha / raspberry tea).
After the meal was completed, there was some more awkward silence and a period in which people attempted to set a wedding date, and from there we said our goodbyes. The fiance’s family departed first along with my sister-in-law. Then the rest of us got back in my father-in-law’s automobile and headed back whence we came.
On Friday afternoon, Jinhui and I had to go to the violent crimes division of our local police station so she could get fingerprints taken. This is what happened…if movies like 살인의 추억 and countless other Korean cop movies are to be believed.
So I live in a big fancy apartment. We have all the best technology: an elevator, card keys, middle aged Korean men that patrol the place on bikes. But apartment living is not all it’s cracked up to be. Like if I want to play Pearl Jam covers on guitar at 2:00 in the morning…I’m not really at liberty to do so. Or everytime I want to ride the elevator, the asshole on the 22nd floor is bogarting it. Additionally there are asshole children all over the place.
But perhaps the worst part of living in an apartment complex is the diminished privacy that comes with living in such close proximity to such hordes of people. Prior to living in this apartment I lived in a windowless studio apartment, and before that, the suburbs…so it goes without saying that I became accustom to things such as privacy and being able to do whatever I damn well pleased without the fear of prying eyes. If I wanted to walk around in various states of undress or partake in other types of adult situations or brief nudity, it was cool, and when living in the suburbs, if I wanted to play Pearl Jam cover songs on guitar at 2 in the morning…well that was cool too.
Not so in an apartment. In an apartment, you have to think about people other than yourself. Let’s take a quick look at this completely hypothetical example that totally did not happen to me or involve me at all…and in case you forgot, it is totally hypothetical, and doesn’t involve me. In this example, a man and his wife live in an standard apartment complex somewhere in South Korea. We’ll call the man Wyatt Dunn Riot Bunn, and the wife can be named…uh… Jenny! Yeah, Riot and Jenny lived in this apartment, and on a particular day, after taking a shower, Riot thought it would be humorous to run out of the bathroom clad only in a pair of Underoos (please note that I…er Riot was not actually wearing Underoos, mearly briefs as opposed to boxers) and ambush his wife, who was in the the other room watching television.
He did so, and both he and the wife thought it was funny…until they noticed the moving truck elevator coming up right outside their huge bay window. I was totally embarassed. How embarassing that must have been.
Since I, as a writer, can not think of a decent way to wrap this up, we’re going to bust out a high school essay’s generic conclusion, and modify it slightly.
For these reasons, and many more, the Renassiance period was a period of great change living in an apartment in South Korea is not as awesome as it could be.
As you may or not know, my wife and I are in the process of getting out of Korea and heading back to the US of A. As part of the process we are required to prove that my wife is not a criminal or a threat to the peaceful society that is America. So we have to present her criminal records. To obtain this in Korea all we had to do was walk into the police station hand over her ID card and wait 40 minutes. Case closed!
But due to the fact that my wife lived in Canada for a year, we must also produce a Canadian criminal report. This is proving to be slightly more difficult so please bear with me as I go off on a rant. If you are Canadian with Canadian flags all over everything you own and are easily offend by people bad mouthing your country, or if you are an American that seems to think Canada is the greatest land ever and don’t want that illusion tarnished, turn back now before it’s too late.
Ok all the sensitive people are gone now? Good. The follow rant was directed at my brother who happened to be on AIM requesting Wesley Willis Fiasco tunes from me.
ME: can i get a “Fuck canada!”
MY BROTHER: oh yeah i heard about that
MY BROTHER: are they being bitches?
ME: yeah they are indeed.
ME: at least 150 days for them to look up my wife’s name and print out a copy of a blank criminal record.
MY BROTHER: shit
MY BROTHER: thats like half a year
ME: yup…about half a year
ME: and the direct quote was that it would take, “in excess of 150 days”
ME: when you get up to the hundreds when talking about number of days switch to months assholes.
ME: if I see 5 months I’m going to get less pissed off then if I see 150 days
ME: even though I know in my heart of hearts that they are exactly the same
MY BROTHER: yeah
ME: i think canadian police force know that they suck ass as well, since there’s some thing on their webpage about how they will not respond to any emails that include profanity.
ME: oh and also they don’t have a way to download the form I need…so I have to email them requesting they mail me the form.
MY BROTHER: wow
ME: but also they did not have the email address I needed to request the form so i had to write an email to some third party requesting an email address so I could send the email to request a form that most 1st World countries would have on their offical website.
ME: stupid developing country canada!
MY BROTHER: yeah
ME: they seriously are pissing me off
And that was pretty much the end of the rant. Tune in tomorrow if you want to hear about a trip I took to some mountain.
I once heard that an army travels on its stomach. This apparently holds true for me as well. As yesterday Jinhui and I traveled to Jeonju for the sole purpose of eating Jeonju bibimbab (전주비빔밥). “Wyatt, can’t you get bibimbab anywhere?” Think of it like this, can you get Korean food in New York? Yes. On the average is it going to be as good as the Korean food you can get in Korea? Probably not. It’s the same theory at work here. Jeonju invented bibimbab, and therefore in theory can do it better than anyone else in the game. So anyhow we went to Jeonju because we were hungry.
Like most of our trips it began on bus. This time instead of heading to the airport, the bus headed south quite uneventfully and roughly two and a half hours later we were in Jeonju. Jeonju actually reminded me a lot of Albany, NY (from which I hail). There weren’t a lot of extremely tall building, limited public transportation, and it was possible for one to get most places on foot, but Jeonju had a lot of stuff that does not exist in Albany…namely bibimbab.
From the bus terminal we headed downtown (or possibly uptown I’m not really sure) in order to get our eat on. We ended up doing lunch at a restaurant named 가족회관 (and as a quick aside there are a lot more restaurants in Jeonju that use the word 회관 than exist in Seoul). Lunch was amazing! For starters while most restaurants in Seoul will hook you up with a side dish or three, the restaurant we chowed down in nearly broke the table they placed so much food on it. And then there was the main course. I have probably consumed over a hundred bowls of bibimbab during my stay in Korea, and this was hands down the best bowl of bibimbab I’ve ever had. The gochujang tasted a little different than the standard issue gochujang one might pick up in the supermarket, and that made a lot of difference. Guts full, we decided instead of simply heading back to Seoul…or Gyeonggido more exactly, we would make the most of our time in Jeonju and act like tourists.
So we decided to head to the 한옥마을 (Hanok Village). This place is a village of approximately 700 houses built in the traditional Korean style. Sounded like a decent place to visit, but the road to the Hanok village was paved with outstanding historical monuments and tourist photo opportunities. For starters we had 전동교회 (Jeondong Church), a Catholic church built on the grounds of some martyr inducing executions.
Following or inspection of the grounds, we went across the street and checked out Gyeonggijeon Shrine. This shrine contains pictures of various Chosun kings, and holds a special place for King Taejo, the founder of the Chosun dynasty. Taejo, wasn’t always called Taejo and he wasn’t always the king. There was a time period when he was known as Lee Song-gye. Now as you may or may not know, there are countless Lees, Yis, Rhees, Ris, 이s, and 李s in Korea. They do not all share a common ancestry however, and people trace their families to different clans.
My wife is a member of the Jeonju Lee clan…which happens to be the same one that begot Taejo. So there you go, my wife is related to the kings of the Chosun period. I know in reality she is probably about as related to them as John Goodman was to the King of England in the movie King Ralph, but it was still kind of odd. In addition to checking out Gyeonggijeon, we visited the adjacent grounds (the name of which escapes me at the moment). This area had a lot of buildings there were apparently used to house visiting dignitaries and supplies for various rituals.
After paying our respects to our ancestors we headed out towards the Hanok Village, but we were briefly waylaid by the fact that there was some sort of festival going on. So we checked out some performances, watched some kids ride a cow, and saw a photo exposition about life in North Korea…you know all the normal festival stuff.
Finally we made it to the Hanok Village. The Hanok Village as I mentioned before contained 700 houses all in the traditional style. The area itself was kind of odd, since some of the houses were actual homes, and others were clearly for tourists. So I felt a little weird when we would walk into random yards. “This one’s for tourists right?” “Yeah.” “Alright, just checking.”
Among the sites we visited were place were paper was made (Jeonju has a long history of paper making…a fact I learned at a paper museum) and an alcohol museum…that gave out free alcohol. HELL YEAH! That’s my kind of museum. Seriously the museum was awesome. It was not too big: just a couple rooms with alcohol related historical artifacts, and then out in the yard a couple ladies with free alcohol. The brews I sampled were as follows: 모주 (some regional brew I’d never had before that tasted like cinnamon), 국화주 ([菊花 not 國花] a brew made from flowers…this brew I had consumed once before and it tastes like 백세주 a little bit), and 송화주 (another flower based alcohol that had a really hot aftertaste). The brews were decent…made all the more awesome due to the fact that they were free.
We also visited a house that depicted life in traditional house during the Chosun period. Apparently I was supposed to be allowed to play traditional percussion instruments there, but no one was about to instruct us. There were goats though. Oh I’m sorry, they weren’t goats, they were 산양 (mountain sheep), but they looked just like goats to me.
After our time in the Hanok Village, we headed up a hill to an area named 오목교, which as far as I could tell was a place were a historical figure once hung out so the powers that be decided it was important. Anyhow from there we were able to take decent pictures of the village below. And then we went to 풍남문, which was the only surviving gate from original city walls. With that stuff all check off our touristy stuff to do check list we decided to grab some dinner.
Dinner was 돌솥밥. The food wasn’t that bad, but the service was pretty lousy, and you know how that can taint one’s dining experience. The only other thing worth mentioning about dinner was the fact that I purchased a 청국장 ice cream sandwich there. For those of you that don’t know what 청국장 is, it’s a kind of fermented bean paste that stinks to high hell. A lot of Koreans even think it’s too gross to consume. I enjoy it myself, but the stuff does stink, and it’s one of those things that doesn’t really lend itself to ice cream. It’s like pizza and ice cream. I like both of those items as well, but I don’t want to eat them together. The ice cream didn’t really smell or taste anything like 청국장, but it didn’t really taste good either.
Our time was running out (we had 9:00 bus tickets), so we decided to check out 객사 and then head back to the bus terminal. At 객사 we caught the tail end of some women’s rights group having a demonstration to put an end to prostitution, and from there it was back to the bus station. Some two and a half hours later we were back in Gyeonggido and our adventures in Jeonju were over.
Additional photos can be seen here if you’re into pictures of food and junk like that.
Yesterday was Saturday and like all good Korean residents I kicked off the day by working. After a brief period of educating people, I met up with my wife and we headed to 신촌 to grab some lunch. Sometime during the summer we saw a restaurant that offered 냉까스 (cold donkatsu) on one of those cooking shows on television…only they never explicitly told which restaurant it was. After much internet searching we discovered that it was a restaurant known as 家門의 우동 in 신촌. So yesterday we headed out there to check it out.
The food was decent. The 냉까스 in particular was really refreshing. The prices weren’t that bad either, though the portions were a little small. If you’re a big eater, you probably wouldn’t be satified ordering just one dish. Since it was lunch time, and neither of us are people who could pound a Hungry Man dinner and still want more, we were good to go.
After lunch we decided to go check out the sex museum in 신촌, but it either closed, moved, or we had horrible sense of direction and could not locate it. We did locate the Ralph Lauren tour bus where some girl with way too much eye makeup took our photo in exchange for my wife trying on some sort of Ralph Lauren perfume (see the picture to the right). With the sex museum a bust we decided to go ride in a plastic duck on the Han River.
The Han River was nice, but not nearly as action packed as the Han River depicted in the film 괴물. Anyhow Jinhui and I forked over 10,000 won and jumped into a boat shaped like a duck and paddled around in the Han River. The duck boat was actually really fun. There was a cool breeze and the river didn’t stink too badly so it was kind of awesome. Though it would have been more awesome if we could have traveled outside of the little fenced off duck boat area. Anyway we took some pictures, so if you want to see some pictures of me inside a plastic duck riding down a river, check this link.
Following the insanity that was riding around in a boat shaped like a duck we met Jinhui’s friend in 강남 and had some dinner and then some brews. The dinner was standard issue (삼겹살), but the brews were awesome. Since I never really hung out at all in 강남, I am probably like the last person in Korea to know about this place, but the venue known as The Beer Factory is awesome! They have all manner of microbrewed beers. I partook in a brew known as Morphine 8.4, which boasted 8.4% alcohol content. This was slightly less impressive than it sounds because it was served in a cup about half the size of the normal 4 point something brews. Anyhow brews were consumed and it was awesome.
That’s all I’ve got to say. Please go about your business.
I always kind of thought that the clip show was the biggest cop out, same thing goes for the live album. Yeah sure someone is going to watch it / buy it, but it’s never as awesome as if you had just come up with something new. So it is with a heavy heart that I bring you these “Lost Writings Of Wyatt Dunn.”
To say that I have post things about my actual life with any regularity since the end of December would be a complete lie (a fact that is even more obvious when you realize that I began writing this post in April). Basically since my sister arrived here, this webpage has been dominated by randomness, Korean music video and television commercials, and crudely drawn pictures I made using Microsoft Paintbrush. Anyhow, in an effort to get things back on track I’ve put up some old adventures that happened during my lost months. Since I have a degree in history, and things like proper chronological order matter to me, I have dated all of this old adventures with the date they actually went down (or as close to that date as I can remember). Some of you newbies here might have already read these if you went back and read the archives, and some of these tales even veterns will be familiar with…only now there are shiny pictures and junk! Oh and as an added bonus, I’ve posted two articles written for a different webpage in my pre-Korea days. Check them out if you want to see a non-worldy and immature Wyatt Dunn in action.
So that about does it…I really am sorry for making you think I have written something new, when essentially I have really done is copied and pasted some links to old junk I’ve written and added an intro and this poorly written sentence. Blah!
This past week I had to do something very difficult. My wife and I began the process of obtaining a visa so she could immigrate to the land of Big Macs, Starbucks, and Oprah.
For those of you who have never immigrated or brought anyone to America following the letter of the law, have no idea how much work it is.
The first step involved me filling out a bunch of papers that had the same information again and again. Time consuming? Yes. Overly difficult? Aside from attempting to write out akwardly arranged Korean address in an American format (and Roman letters) no, it wasn’t difficult at all.
The next stemp was the tricky one. I had to schedule an appointment to hand in my reams of paper (which in my understanding were only kind of a pre-application). Now the only way one can schedule such an appointment is to send them an email…send an email to an email address ending in dhs.gov (dhs = Department of Homeland Security). This is the US government, not Real Player or some random message board, so I therefore had to use the real email address. Sorry Mr. Harder, no aliases this time.
Additionally I think that I tend to be a tad sarcastic when I sit down and start typing, which is definately not something I wanted to be when dealing with my good friends at DHS. So, I seriously sat and stared at my monitor for like ten minutes before I was able to to write:
Dear Madam or Sir,
I am an American citizen married to a Korean national. I would to like to schedule an appointment in order to file form I-130 and begin the visa process for my wife. If it is possible, I would like to schedule this appointment sometime next week. I thank you for your time.
-Wyatt Dunn
Nothing rude. Nothing that might be taken as a threat. No water. Just a totally boring email.
The next day there was a response in my mailbox informing me that my appointment had been scheduled at the US Embassy for Monday, August 14th at 9:30 am. Talk about prompt…and accomodating.
So on the morning of the 14th, Jinhui and I trekked to the embassy in Seoul. God I hate riding the red (in reality orange) bus at rush hour! But for the wife, I’m willing to suffer through it. And in reality, the bus ride was the most difficult part of the day. We arrived a little after 9:00, and after a short wait, our papers were being processed.
But before that, I just want to holler about how miserable a lot of Americans look and act. Most of the Koreans there just looked nervous, but the majority of the Americans accompanying them looked so pissed off. Yes, beaucracy is a pain in the ass, but pouting and / or yelling at your wife isn’t going to make it easier. And also to the dude that got pissed off for getting to the counter and not having the right papers filled out: don’t get pissed off at other people and start swearing and making a scene…next time read the damn instructions they give you when you schedule an appointment, or read them online.
Anyhow, aside from having a family registry deemed too old (a problem solved with a quick trip to the district office…and a PC Bang so a translation could be typed up) out first step towards leaving Korea seems to have been successful. The people took all our paperwork, and our money and told us that they would email Jinhui with further instructions in 4 to 6 weeks. Hooray!!!
I currently get paid an insane sum of money to work at a 학원 one day a week. It’s a pretty low key affair. I go into a classroom for thirty minutes stints of speaking English at the children. For the most part they are fairly well behaved, but on occassion there are some jerks that need to be told that they are jerks. This is the tale of one such jerk. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
In one of the classes I teach there is this one pre-teen girl who just rubs me the wrong way. She doesn’t do her work. She’s rude. She never attempts to speak English during class. And her voice is annoying as hell. Basically she’s a pain in the ass.
So on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year (that year being 2006), I was at the 학원 attempting to impart knowledge of the English language upon this particular class with the annoying pre-teen girl. During the class I had to stop what I was doing and tell her to stop speaking and put away her comic book twice in the first 3 minutes of class. She still was being disruptive, so it was time to give her the boot.
Now on this particular day she happened to be wearing a scouting uniform of some sorts. Girl Scouts? Nope. The mysterious Space Scouts that existed in Goyang-shi that I never knew what they actually did? No. She was wearing a Cub Scout uniform.
Here’s a little known Wyatt Dunn factoid: I too was in Cub Scouts for a couple of years. I don’t remember much from my days as a scout. I have a vague recollection of constantly doing leather work in some kid’s basement, and a scout leader bellowing “Shit!” while attempting to capture a frog while on a camping trip, and also that I would have rather stayed home and played Dragon Warrior than go to Cub Scouts most nights. The only other thing I recall, and this is with 100% certainty, was Cub Scouts seemed to have a “No Girls Allowed” policy.
Anyhow I seriously digressed there. Back to a classroom in South Korea circa 2006 as opposed to Greg Rosenthal’s basement circa 1988. I turned to this annoying girl and proclaimed, “Listen Boy Scout, I’m not a hippie and this isn’t ‘Do what you feel time!’ It’s English class and I’m your teacher, so sit down and be quiet, or just go home.”
Now you’d think I declared war on this girl for she stood up, and like that Four Non-Blondes song screamed at the top of her lungs…only it wasn’t “What’s going on!” that was bellowed, it was, “FUCK YOU!” I left the classroom and came back with the biggest guns I had at my disposal: the 실잘님. The 실장님 is all about me for some reason and has my back in most cases, so he took the girl out of the room and she did not return for the remainder of class. At the end of class she was brought before me and handed me the most awesome apology note ever:
I tried my damnedest not to laugh out loud at the note, even so my response kind of came out like, “Ppppthh…Oh ok….he he…just don’t do it again…HAHAHA!!! Yo lookit this note! MWAHAHAHA!!!”
